ejabberd and existing web server?

[kruemelprinz]

Hi all

I would like to install ejabberd as described in the HowTo provided by johannes. I would like to use it to be able to chat with my wife (and friends) via smartphone instead of writing sms. And NO - facebook, ICQ and other existing services don't suit me, I do not want to give my personal information to others.

Before installing, knowing that I would not be able to tackle such problems with my limited Linux knowledge, I would like to know whether there will be any problems reaching my web server after installation.

I am using my B3 for my homepage, forum and as an owncloud instance and that requires that the server settings are not changed so that everything can be reached under the current domain.
Will entering the same domain as my website affect the apache settings and cause my webserver not to work?
Any other implications?

Thank you for any comments on this issue.
Best regards
Robert

[toukie]

I had it last summer but didn't have much use for it so it has been taken away. I used it with jitsi for voice communication https://jitsi.org/

I have crashed my B3 a couple of times but it wasn't for ejabberd, it worked just fine without interfering with anything else. You use it under your existing domain. I might try to install it again to see how it works in my new nginx-as-reverse-proxy-for- apache constellation. I have two WordPress sites under two different domains in use plus the easy-find adress.

There are much more experienced users here, I hope that you get an answer from them. The installation can be a bit tricky. Anyway, I tried it and survived.

[kruemelprinz]

Thanks toukie for sharing your experience. I think I will wait for some more replies just "to be very very sure" and then I'll give it a try...

In what respect can the installation be tricky? The tutorial by johannes does not look that complicated, but i guess from my previous experience that it is only half the truth. He does not say anything about configuration, is that the part that is tricky?

As I wrote, I would most of all like to use it for chatting, but audio calls (and even video - if the B3 resources are capable of that) would be nice functions in the future...

[Gordon]

Will entering the same domain as my website affect the apache settings and cause my webserver not to work?
Any other implications?

No

The (domain) name that you type in your client is primarily a means to find your IP address (using a DNS server) so that the client knows where to send the message. XMPP traffic will not touch your HTTP server and HTTP traffic will not touch your XMPP server as they both use different IP ports on the server.

[toukie]

Well, the installation is simple by apt-get install ejabberd. It is the configuration that easily creates problems. If it goes wrong just purge out all of ejabberd and do the configuration one more time. Don't go after any error messages, there is nothing wrong with ejabberd, just do the configuration right, it gives you no pardon.

You get it right and everything works fine, or you get it wrong and you get tons of error messages. That was my experience. I had to try a few times before I got it up and running. If you know from the beginning what you are doing you will save yourself a lot of time, so be careful. Installing ejabberd shouldn't crash your system. You can have it on, and you can have it off.

[kruemelprinz]

Thanks a lot for your help so far. I did not get ejabberd working so i decided to uninstall and reinstall it. After uninstallation, the /etc/ejabberd folder was still existent. After reinstallation, the old ejabberd.cfg was not replaced and the old (wrong) configuration still existed. I uninstalled once more and deleted /etc/ejabberd manually.

Now I have the problem that I get the following error message during installation:

Code: Select all

chown: cannot access `/etc/ejabberd': No such file or directory
dpkg: error processing ejabberd (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
configured to not write apport reports
                                      Errors were encountered while processing:
 ejabberd
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I am starting to understand that it might not have been a good idea to delete the directory and its contents, but now that I have done it I have to find a solution.

Can anybody suggest a solution please? Even if stupid me does not deserve it

[Gordon]

My guess is that if the package doesn't create /etc/ejabberd this is because the postinstall script is somehow notified that it should already exist. So apparently there must be other leftover folders when uninstalling, which you'll most likely find in /usr/share or /var/lib

[ryz]

Have you tried to use purge rather then remove with apt-get before doing the reinstall?

purge
purge is identical to remove except that packages are removed and
purged (any configuration files are deleted too).