OpenBSD Journal

Conferencing Server

Contributed by jose on from the chitty-chat dept.

Robert Lessard writes:
"Anyone have any experience/lessons to share setting up a chat/conferencing server on Openbsd? I need to set one up in a private network that will support about 10 concurrent users- client end would be windoze. Any feedback such as recommended distro appreciated."
I assume he means something more than an IRC server (see net/irc in ports). Any ideas?

(Comments are closed)

Comments

  1. By Anonymous Coward () on

    but this is exactly what I've been wanting to do for some time... I should be less lazy and actually check for myself, but if anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

  2. Comments

    1. By StickyC () none on mailto:none

      I'll second the vote. When our company shut down our IM access for security reasons, I was able to skunkworks a Jabber server in under a day (including finding an old P/200 in the corner and installing OpenBSD on it). We went with JabberD source for the server and had no problems getting it going. Since we're a mixed OS house (Mac/PC), the multitude of clients was a big selling point as well. The only real downsides (as far as we're concerned) was the learning curve for those who've only ever used AIM and figuring out how add the various plugins (like group chat).

  3. By Anonymous Coward () on

    How about something like PHPMyChat? Click-n-drool interface for those that think everything MUST be web-enabled, but essentially still IRC-like in it's use. That way you get to spend heaps more on a big, fat, hairy server, play with MySQL, PHP and Apache, waste lots of time getting it going, and those familiar with IRC will probably wince but still use it.

    Or you could grab a crappy old box, get ircd going, grab a bot to manage channels and piss off to the pub. Same result!

  4. By RC () on

    Do you just want text chat? That's too easy.

    Now, if you wanted real conferencing tools, I can help.

    Not too long ago I was looking for something that would allow users on the local network, and a few over the internet, to all videoconference with each other, with a minimum of fuss.

    Tho obvious solution was CU-SeeMe... but it's quite expensive, and mainly just for Windows (although binary freeware 'QSeeMe' is available for Linux). That is an option though. The last released free client software lacks a good video codec, but it was a potential option.

    To try getting CU-SeeMe and/or Netmeeting conferencing, I was going to use OpenH.323 . Unfortunatly, I found it to crash upon connection, so I almost immediately gave up on that option.

    I had considered using M-Bone tools, but the users out on the internet were a stumbling block. That is, until I found an M-Bone reflector program.... It runs on a single server, and all the clients can simply connect to it directly (as their gateway). It can even act as a unicast to multicast gateway (it's original purpose).

    So, you could set it up on a server (http://www.east.isi.edu/~tlehman/programs/mboneuctomcgw/), then you use the standard M-Bone tools like ViC, rat, vat, WB, etc. for video, audio, text, and whiteboard conferencing. Best of all, each of those tools is free, an
    very cross-platform.

    Yeah, probably not what you wanted, but hopefully it will help someone out.

  5. By W () on

    Undernet's IRCu is easy to install in OpenBSD. I've done it myself.

    http://coder-com.undernet.org/

  6. By julien () openbsd@gve.ch on mailto:openbsd@gve.ch

    with crypto in mind, there is the project
    from silcnet.org that seems to be a good
    one to use on top of OpenBSD.

  7. By n0nemus () none@none.com on mailto:none@none.com

    Anyone have any suggestions for a collaborative whiteboarding system? I have needed to do whiteboard stuff with other people who are geographically dispersed, and could really use something like this. A voice interface would be nice for doing conference calls and whiteboarding. Maybe I'm dreaming.

    Comments

    1. By RC () on

      Damn! I post a friggin essay on conferencing, just what you've asked for, and you don't even take 5 seconds to look through the forum for your answer...

      You're completely hopeless.

      Comments

      1. By n0nemus () none@none.com on mailto:none@none.com

        No, you posted a solution that involves expensive hardware. I want something like a networked gimp of sorts, where several people can use a mouse to manipulate SOFTWARE and share those ideas. This link: http://www.visopsys.org/andy/babylon/ was actually helpful.

        Comments

        1. By RC () on

          "expensive hardware" ??? WTF are you talking about?

    2. By Not Really Anonymous () on

      Try Babylon Java Chat:
      http://www.visopsys.org/andy/babylon/

      Works great.

  8. By Jedi/Sector One () j@pureftpd.org on http://www.pureftpd.org/

    Maybe this is not exactly what you need, but have a look at this project :

    http://manhattan.sourceforge.net/

  9. By ArSa () newarsa@yahoo.com on http://www.openh323.org

    If we are talking conference server in terms of WhitePine server or MS Exchange Conferencing Server, or Lotus Sametime server, then you need an MCU.
    Prime example being OpenMCU from OpenH323 project.
    Not perfect though... has problems :)
    Now, the M-Bone tools sound nice, i think i will try that.

  10. By Not Really Anonymous () on

    The best chat server/client I have seen out there is Babylon Java Chat. It has a whiteboard, the ability to administer rooms (add, delete, modify), users, etc.

    Here is the link:
    http://www.visopsys.org/andy/babylon/

    It can run off the Blackdown-1.2 jdk in the OBSD ports tree.

  11. By Shawn () on http://black9.net

    It's far superior to anything listed and it supports OpenBSD by default. Just don't build with ipv6 support and you'll be gold. Even supports SSL.

    Comments

    1. By a () on


      1) get all the denied rows

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      and rownum 0
      group by fwsource
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      where b.drank 0
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      where b.drank 0
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      ) a
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      where b.drank <= 25
      order by b.drank;

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