Internet setup for Openfire with Spark

Guys Im sure there has been much written about this but I feel its a bit spread out and at a higher level than I can understand. I was hoping for the easiest and simplest way to setup Openfire (and the spark settings) to allow access over the internet of the Openfire server. My Openfire server is on a home machine (behind a simple netgear router). I just want to know what are the simplest and basic settings one the server side, router side, and spark side that should be set. If anyone can recommend a good video or document or some screenshots… anything is appreciated

Thanks Steve

Make sure that your router is configured that it will allow traffic from the internet to acces the server that is running Openfire. This typically involves port forwarding.

Register a domain name, and have DNS records that make that domain name resolve to your external IP address.

Make sure that your server is reachable by that domain name from the internet. This typically involves setting up DNS (A) records.

For ease of use, configure Openfire to use the same domain name. The easiest setup is to make your XMPP domain name equal to the domain name that you use for your host (eg: both “example.org”). You can, however, easily differentiate. Typically, you see that the hostname of the server that is running Openfire then is assigned a FQDN that is a subdomain of your domain (eg: “openfire.example.org”). In this case, you’ll need to set DNS (SRV) records to provide the mapping.

Obtain a CA-signed certificate for your domain. Ensure that the certificate covers at the least the XMPP domain name as well as the FQDN of the host that’s running Openfire (again, if these are the same, things are easier). You can use Let’s Encrypt for this, which is free, but more complex to set up. Best results are obtained with a wildcard certificate for all subdomains of your domain.

Ensure that on your LAN, you can use the same domain names, reaching the same server and service (you can use different IP addresses internally - Openfire cares little about those).

After your network is properly configured, setting up Openfire is pretty straightforward. Run the setup wizard, and make sure that you use the correct XMPP domain name and FQDN values. Spark should run pretty much out of the box, provided that you’re using properly signed certificates.

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Another article Explanation: Connecting to your internal server from internet

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Thanks Guus - so basically almost impossible for novice without a lot of work and time… Just not savvy enough in Internet (DNS Records SRV mapping)

Thanks for the detail message Guus I wish I had the experience to understand it all. Are there any web hosted free (or close to it) IMs that your recommend for a small biz. Spark is not overkill and a perfect fit… wish they had a web based version all ready being hosted.

Thanks again

If you choose an XMPP domain name value that is equal to the DNS name of the server that’s running Openfire, things get less complex.

I’m in the process of setting one up myself at https://goodbytes.im (note that at the time of writing, things are still very much in developement - also, you can’t order through the website yet, but if you’re interested, drop me a note and we’ll see what we can do).