How to install Openfire and Spark/Sparkweb IM in CentOS 5

Openfire is an open source Instant Messaging system that allows you to install your own IM server. The protocol is the standard XMPP where you can use in almost all IM clients available. For this Openfire installation I use Spark (standalone application) and Sparkweb as the clients. Here are the steps, I only mention the important points:

1. Download the rpm installation and install it (something like rpm -i openfire-3.6.4-1.rpm)

2. Create a new database manually, in mysql type: create database openfire;

3. Create entries of new user and db in mysql, with its password

4. Dump in the Openfire database (mysql -u -p < /opt/openfire/resources/database/openfire_mysql.sql

5. Restart mysqld if necessary

6. Install Openfire from browser (http://yoursite:9090)

7. Change the db location and name of db, like localhost, and openfire

8. Enter the user and pass for the openfire db user created earlier

9. Move on to the installation process and make sure domain entered is the same as hostname where the Openfire installed

10. The admin password entered in the installation will not work as soon as you try to login for the first time, I don't know why but there is a solution for this, do this step as it is the only way:

- mysql openfire -u -p

- update ofUser set plainPassword='passwordnyaroot', encryptedPassword=null where username='admin';

11. Restart Openfire (this is a must!): /etc/init.d/openfire restart

11. Go to the users and groups in the admin page, create some users.

12 Install Spark or Sparkweb and test the created users.

That is all about the installation. If you need to have a conference chat then you need to make a room chat from the admin menu. Explore the admin page for more settings.

Snow Leopard

Last night I purchased Snow Leopard through online Apple Store with a very special price (approx. 10 USD). This special price comes with those who purchase Mac between June and December 26, 2009. This means that if you buy a Mac before December 26 this year, you still get the old Leopard. Anyway, reading some reviews in the net it looks like Snow is a very fast OS with full 64 bit operation, but it will need more RAM. 2GB will probably not enough for multitasking office apps, IMs and a browser. 4GB of RAM is recommended after installing Snow Leopard. Can't wait to have my order arrive, I will definitely write a review on this.

More on Linux

Finally found a perfect setup for multiple user shared folder in Samba. The folder's group must be suid (g+rwx and g+s, chgrp nobody where nobody is the Samba user), and list all the write user in the Samba folder config. Make groups in /etc/group with lists of users in each group. Tests must be performed for read, write and delete to make sure everything works as expected.

Reading again

Reading Samba again for a project of small office file sharing and possible document management. Configuring Samba is not very easy. A book about Samba 3 by example has very good examples, but there's a condition where a folder is shared by several assigned users; this is not in the examples but I have found it somewhere in the web. This has to do something about the folder permissions rather than Samba's configuration.

I was also thinking about using Samba for remote storage and possible remote partition, emulating a NAS.

reactivate from inactivity

Time to start blogging again. Recently I read two books: Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds, and Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte. These two books inspired me about making great presentations that audience will listen and understand. It is very challenging to start the idea because I have to be offline and do a brainstorming, write everything in mind to stickies, then rearrange everything. Then actually writing the slides is the last thing to do! It is the same as developing a software where you should start with drawing the whole system, flowcharts, and the last thing to do is coding. It's time to go ANALOG!