Kandan - Modern Open Source Chat

The slickest chat app out there. Open-source and well-supported to boot.

Standard Features

These are features that work out of the box on any provider:

• Easy deploy to CloudFoundry, Heroku, dotCloud, etc.
• Collaborative team chat
• Unlimited channels
• Embed formats for images and youtube videos with requests for others (twitter, facebook, g+, etc.)
• Synchronized sound player - play any audio-tag compatible url for the whole channel (Pending :P)
• /me command!
• Highly extensible plugin format
• Your very own robotic companion

SHUT UP AND LET ME USE IT

Cloud Foundry

You'll need a Cloud Foundry account and the vmc gem installed. Do you vmc target <cloud foundry host> and vmc login, and then this will get you up and running:

git clone https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan.git
cd kandan
bundle install
bundle exec rake assets:precompile
vmc push my-company-chat --path . --instances 1 --mem 256M --runtime ruby19

You'll answer a few questions:

Application Deployed URL [my-company-chat.cloudfoundry.com]: 
Detected a Rails Application, is this correct? [Yn]: 
Creating Application: OK
Would you like to bind any services to 'my-company-chat'? [yN]: y
Would you like to use an existing provisioned service? [yN]: n
The following system services are available
1: mongodb
2: mysql
3: postgresql
4: rabbitmq
5: redis
Please select one you wish to provision: 3
Specify the name of the service [postgresql-246de]: 
Creating Service: OK
Binding Service [postgresql-246de]: OK
Uploading Application:
Checking for available resources: OK
Processing resources: OK
Packing application: OK
Uploading (1M): OK   
Push Status: OK
Staging Application: OK
Starting Application: OK

And Kandan should be available on your Cloud Foundry backend now!

Heroku

You'll need to have the heroku gem installed and to have an existing heroku account. Assuming that, this should work reliably on Heroku:

git clone https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan.git
cd kandan
heroku create --stack cedar
git push heroku master
heroku run rake db:migrate kandan:bootstrap && heroku open
echo "Done, go forth and chat!"
# Not too bad

Integrate Kandan on Heroku with your Amazon S3_BUCKET ( Heroku article on AWS S3 to store static assets and file uploads ). Run the following line, replacing the the global variable values with your own:

heroku config:add S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID=xxx S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=xxxx S3_BUCKET=bucket_name

If successful you should get a response similar to:

Setting config vars and restarting myapp... done, v12
S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID: xxx
S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: xxxx
S3_BUCKET: bucket_name

Your app should be up and running now. The admin email by default is admin@kandan.me with password kandanadmin, or you can sign up as another user.

dotCloud

Looking for community help here.

Heroic server install

If you're looking to install Kandan on a private server, or to develop locally for lemonodor fame, then here is the path you must follow, young hero:

# For development-mode
sudo apt-get install nodejs # (execjs needs an execution environment)
gem install execjs # (Could possibly be added to the gemfile in the assets group)

# Add this to the gemfile:
group :development do  
  gem 'sqlite3'
end

# Get the new gems
bundle install

# Use the default database.yml to get started
cp config/database.yml.sample config/database.yml

# Edit config/database.yml if you want to use postgres/mysql

# Bootstrap the install
bundle exec rake db:create db:migrate kandan:bootstrap
bundle exec thin start

TODO

See the issue tracker

Get Involved!

That's not a question, it's an order! Or more of a friendly offer, really. Kandan is a fully open-source app, so dive in and start adding features, fixing bugs (what bugs?), and cleaning up the code.

• Talk with us on the mailing list
• GitHub issues tracker
• Twitter @cloudfuji
• New-wave open-source meetup - we meetup once a month to share tips on how developers grow business around super high-quality open source software
• ... is there a fifth way? Telegram maybe?

Credits

• Sacha Greif for his amazing design job and exacting implementation standards on Kandan. A wonder and a pleasure to work with.
• Andrew Hampton For the initial manual server install instructions.
• Akash Manohar J For some of the initial work on Kandan
• Thomas Risberg For the Cloud Foundry install instructions and compatibility fixes.

LICENSE

Kandan's code and assets are dual-licensed. Kandan is available generally under the AGPL, and also under a custom license via special agreement. See LICENSE for the AGPL terms, and contact us at support@cloudfuji.com if you're interested in development of Kandan under a custom license.