Installing XMPP server

IPOP allows you to connect to existing XMPP/STUN/TURN services. It is also possible to deploy your own private Online Social Network and NAT traversal services using the ejabberd open-source software and an open-source TURN service.

The ejabberd software also runs a STUN server as part of its implementation. Therefore ejabberd serves as both XMPP server and STUN server.

With this setup, you can create your own users and user relationships directly on the ejabberd server. This is especially useful when running GroupVPN - it allows you to define your own groups and endpoint IDs.

These instructions have only been tested on Ubuntu 12.04

Install and configure ejabberd

1. Install ejabberd on Ubuntu

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install ejabberd

2. Determine the version of ejabberd

   sudo ejabberdctl status

3. Update the ejabberd configuration file

   This sets up the ejabberd admin user "ipopuser" and host "ejabberd". You can configure these parameters with different values, but keep in mind that other tutorials in our documentation assume the XMPP server has been configured with ipopuser and ejabberd.

   For ejabberd earlier than ejabberd 14.07:

   sudo vi /etc/ejabberd/ejabberd.cfg

   #update lines with ipopuser and ejabberd host
   %% Admin user
   {acl, admin, {user, "ipopuser", "ejabberd"}}.
   
   %% Hostname
   {hosts, ["localhost", "ejabberd"]}.

   For ejabberd 14.07 and later:

   sudo vi /etc/ejabberd/ejabberd.yml

   #update lines with ipopuser and ejabberd host
   #in the served hostnames section
   hosts:
     - "localhost"
     - "ejabberd"
   
   ...
   
   #in the access control lists section
     admin:
       user:
           - "": "localhost"
           - "ipopuser": "ejabberd

4. Add the following to the configuration file to enable STUN on UDP port 3478

   For ejabberd earlier than ejabberd 14.07:

   sudo vi /etc/ejabberd/ejabberd.cfg

   {listen,
    [
     {5222, ejabberd_c2s, [
                           {access, c2s},
                           {shaper, c2s_shaper},
                           {max_stanza_size, 65536},
                           %%zlib,
                           starttls, {certfile, "/etc/ejabberd/ejabberd.pem"}
                          ]},
   
     %% this is the new line to enable stun
     {{3478, udp}, ejabberd_stun, []},

   For ejabberd 14.07 and later:

   sudo vi /etc/ejabberd/ejabberd.yml

   #in the listening ports section
   listen:
     -
       port: 3478
       transport: udp
       module: ejabberd_stun

5. (For ejabberd 14.07 and later only) Enable mod_admin_extra for extra ejabberd commands

   sudo vi /etc/ejabberd/ejabberd.yml

   #in the modules section
   modules:
     mod_admin_extra: {}

6. (Optional) Create a new self-signed certificate. If you change the hostname from ejabberd to something else, you need to create a new self-signed certificate and set CN (common name) to the new hostname that you have chosen and place it under /ect/ejabberd

   openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 3650 -newkey rsa:1024 -keyout ejabberd.pem -out ejabberd.pem

7. Restart ejabberd service

   sudo service ejabberd restart

8. Create your admin user

   sudo ejabberdctl register ipopuser ejabberd password

9. Useful ejabberd commands: create additional users and relationships, check who is online

   You can add more users to the XMPP server with the ejabberdctl command as shown below:

   sudo ejabberdctl register alice ejabberd password
   sudo ejabberdctl register bob ejabberd password
   

   You can create social links between users in the XMPP server with the ejabberd command as shown below. Note that for each friendship you wish to create, you need to run the command twice (to add Alice to Bob's roster, and to add Bob to Alice's roster):

   sudo ejabberdctl add-rosteritem alice ejabberd bob ejabberd bob svpn both
   sudo ejabberdctl add-rosteritem bob ejabberd alice ejabberd alice svpn both
   

   For ejabberd 14.07 and later, you can also create a shared roster group to establish social links among all users in a group.

   sudo ejabberdctl srg_create ipop_vpn ejabberd ipop_vpn ipop_vpn ipop_vpn
   sudo ejabberdctl srg_user_add @all@ ejabberd ipop_vpn ejabberd
   

   To check which users are online:

   sudo ejabberdctl connected-users
   

Configure SocialVPN/GroupVPN

Once the XMPP server is configured and users are created, you need to configure your SocialVPN/GroupVPN nodes to use it:

1. Update config.json file to point to new STUN server, we recommend that you use the public IP address (not DNS) of the STUN server, especially if server is running on a public cloud (i.e. Amazon EC2)

   {
       "ip4": "172.31.0.100",
       "xmpp_username": "ipopuser@ejabberd",
       "xmpp_password": "password",
       "xmpp_host": "public-ip-of-ejabberd-vm",
       "stun": ["public-ip-of-ejabberd-vm:3478"]
   }

Additional ejabberd configurations

• You can add more users by going to http://ip-address-of-vm:5280/admin (click on Virtual Hosts ==> ejabberd ==> Users)

  username = ipopuser@ejabberd
  password = password

• If you are running this on the cloud, make sure to open ports (port 3478 is necessary because ejabberd runs a STUN server as well)

  TCP - 5222, 5269, 5280
  UDP - 3478

---

You can also setup a TURN server in cases where your network firewall does not allow direct connections.