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mod_muc_light_developers_guide.md

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The Developer's Guide to mod_muc_light

This is an in-depth guide on mod_muc_light design decisions and implementation.

Source, header and test suite files

All source files can be found in apps/ejabberd/src.

  • mod_muc_light.erl Main module. It implements gen_mod behaviour. It subscribes to some essential hooks and exports several functions, mostly callbacks. It handles integration with mod_mam and Disco Service. All operations that take place outside the room (including the room creation) are implemented here. Last but not least - this module prevents service-unavailable errors being sent when an offline user receives groupchat message.

  • mod_muc_light_codec.erl A behaviour implemented by modules that translate MUC Light internal data format to stanzas for clients and vice versa. Besides specifying callbacks, it implements generic error encoder function.

  • mod_muc_light_codec_legacy.erl An implementation of XEP-0045 compatibility mode. In fact, some parts of legacy mode are implemented directly in mod_muc_light.erl but stanza translation takes place here. It does not utilise full potential of MUC Light extension but allows usage of standard MUC implementation in XMPP client libraries for prototyping or transition phase. Not recommended for production systems (less efficient than modern codec and requires more round-trips).

  • mod_muc_light_codec_modern.erl An implementation of modern MUC protocol, described in the XEP. Supports all MUC Light features.

  • mod_muc_light_db.erl A behaviour implemented by database backends for MUC Light extension.

  • mod_muc_light_db_mnesia.erl Mnesia backend for this extension. Uses transactions for room metadata updates (configuration and affiliation list) and dirty reads whenever possible.

  • mod_muc_light_room.erl This module handles everything that occurs inside the room: access checks, metadata changes, message broadcasting etc.

  • mod_muc_light_utils.erl Utilities shared by other MUC Light modules. It includes room configuration processing or affiliation logic.

Only header file can be found in apps/ejabberd/include.

  • mod_muc_light.hrl It contains definitions of MUC Light namespaces, default configuration options and several common data types and records.

There are 2 test suites and one helper module in test/ejabberd_tests/tests.

  • muc_light_SUITE.erl Main test suite, checks all most important functionalities of MUC Light extension.

  • muc_light_legacy_SUITE.erl muc_light_SUITE.erl equivalent that uses XEP-0045 compatibility mode.

  • muc_helper.erl Provides handy iterators over room participants. Used in MUC Light suites but could be used in muc_SUITE as well in the future.

Hooks used by this extension

  • offline_groupchat_message_hook used by mod_muc_light:prevent_service_unavailable/3 - Like the name suggests, prevents the default behaviour of sending service-unavailable error to the room when groupchat message is sent to an offline occupant.

  • remove_user used by mod_muc_light:remove_user/2 - Triggers DB cleanup of all data related to the removed user. Includes a broadcast of a notification about user removal from occupied rooms.

  • disco_local_items used by mod_muc_light:get_muc_service/5 - Adds MUC service item to Disco result. Uses MUC Light namespace or classic MUC one when legacy mode is enabled.

  • roster_get used by mod_muc_light:add_rooms_to_roster/2 - Injects room items to the user's roster.

  • privacy_iq_get, privacy_iq_set used by mod_muc_light:process_iq_get/5 and mod_muc_light:process_iq_set/4 respectively - These callbacks handle blocking settings when legacy mode is enabled.

  • is_muc_room_owner, muc_room_pid used by mod_muc_light:is_room_owner/3 and mod_muc_light:muc_room_pid/2 respectively - Callbacks that provide essential data for mod_mam_muc extension.

Hooks executed by this extension

  • filter_room_packet by codecs - Allows mod_mam_muc to archive groupchat messages.

  • forget_room by mod_muc_light_db_mnesia and mod_muc_light_room - It is a part of mod_mam_muc integration as well. A hook used for MAM cleanup upon room destruction.

Advantages and drawbacks (compared to classic MUC)

New MUC implementation has following benefits:

  • Fully distributed - Does not have SPOF, concurrent senders do not block each other, especially in large rooms. Message broadcasting is being done in sender c2s context.
  • Doesn't use presences - Much less traffic and stable membership information, especially on mobile networks.
  • Built-in blocking support - Instead of blocking traffic like Privacy Lists do, it handles blocklists internally, preventing the blocker from being added to or by blocked entities.
  • Less round-trips - Room can be created and configured with initial list of occupants with single request.
  • Versioning - Reduces traffic and allows clients to detect reliably and early that room state has changed.
  • Isolation - Any processing error is contained in sender context, not affecting other room occupants.
  • Fully customisable room configuration - Your users can store any meta room information you allow.

Drawbacks are:

  • Requires DB transactions to ensure Room state consistency.
  • Fetches occupant list from DB for every message that is broadcasted.
  • Due to concurrent message broadcast, it is possible for occupants to receive messages in different order (given the messages are broadcasted at the exactly same time).
  • With stream resumption disabled or when resumption times out, user may miss message in a following scenario:
    1. Message A archived
    2. Message B archived
    3. Message B arrives to the user
    4. User loses connection
    5. Resumption timeout
    6. User queries MAM for all messages after B and misses A

Design decisions & explanations

ETS table with options

There is no easy way of getting module configuration when only service domain is available (e.g. muclight.localhost registered when booting localhost domain). Maybe it can result in common module solving this problem, that other modules could use too, but for now MUC Light handles it internally by maintaining own config tab that stores mappings between actual MUC domain and configuration.

Ideas for Further Development

Easy

  • ODBC backend
  • Add more tests for negative cases

Medium

  • Add optional per-room processes to avoid the need of DB transactions and ensure message ordering (maybe "hard"?).
  • Riak backend
  • Redis backend
  • Extract per service subdomain config tab as separate, generic module (maybe "easy"?).

Hard

  • Room metadata cache (maybe "medium"?).