With all the new releases of Spark n OpenFire, is there a way now to have Spark on Blackberry ??
If yes, appreciate any guidance on this. Thanks.
I think Spark it its original form never will be ported to mobile clients as it is too heavy weight (Java you know). So i think you should seek for mobile jabber clients created fro blackberry. There is no plans to create official Spark clients for mobile platforms.
I am new to this, so can you please clarify your statement -
Do you mean to say that if I use any mobile jabber client, then I can login to Spark, on Blackberry, and be able to communicate with all office users?? Also, Spark would have to be exposed outside the network.
Or you mean something else.
spark is a program to connect to xmpp-servers on PCs
if your looking for a blackberry jabber clinet try googling it (http://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=blackberry+jabber)
if your talking about how to connect via mobile phone to your office “Openfire” Server, you will have to talk to your IT-Personnel
I am surely trying to find out how to connect from BB to Openfire server inside our network. I am the admin, as I said before, we are not much into xmpp and all, thus need directions or hints.
You will have to find out how can you reach an internal address via your Blackberry. This sounds even more difficult than accessing public jabber server. We can help you much with that, as this is a complex task. Probably you will have to expose your Openfire to the Internet and then connect with a blackberry jabber client so its mobile internet (3G or something) could reach the server. All we can tell, that jabber uses 5222 port. So you will have to expose 5222 port into Internet and forward this port into your internal Openfire server.
Wroot is right, in that you will have to make Openfire accessibe from the web. But this can be easy acomplished if you are using a Cisco Firewall, or using a Device that can perform static NAT (network address translation). What you do is to assign a public IP to your firewall (outside interface), if you have a firewall that controls Internet access you probably already have this in place. Second designate a port, it not need be 5222, it can be 9878 for example, preferably something high. And then using a static NAT, you tell the firewall that all traffic reaching public IP on port 9878 translate to real IP and port of Openfire. Install your favorite blackberry jabber app and configure client to connect to public IP on port that is being translated, my favorite Jabber app is Beejive (not free), since I can connect to multiple sessions and different client types at the same time. Enough of free advertising for Beejive, points to remember are that Interent connection on blackberry is a must for this to work, and that you will need to change security on the outside of your firewall to allow access, which is not recommended since you will be exposed to attackes atleast on that one port, but by using a different one then once that port is closed on your servers inside there is minimum risk. And you can also control who has access in too, with certain devices that is. Good luck!!!
Hi JDS,
Thank you for your great answer, it surely answers our query and with your clear guidelines, I am sure we will have this up and running soonest !
We have about 40 BlackBerry users, and giving them Spark on mobile will be the best thing that could happen to BB…
We have our Openfire running on a public IP.
We have several BB´s connected using either Trillian or other XAMPP enabled Client ( can´t remember name )
Trillian is tricky , you cannot ADD the Openfire account from the BB , you need the full Trillian or at least a web trillian client to sign in first time, then it will work pretty good…
Basically nearly anything that speaks XAMPP can connect somehow…
we tried BB, WebIM´s like Meebo , Android phones, I-phone etc…