/ 
Net-XMPP2-0.08
/ Net::XMPP2

NAME

Net::XMPP2 - An implementation of the XMPP Protocol

VERSION

Version 0.08

SYNOPSIS

use Net::XMPP2::Connection;

or:

use Net::XMPP2::IM::Connection;

or:

use Net::XMPP2::Client;

DESCRIPTION

This is the head module of the Net::XMPP2 XMPP client protocol (as described in RFC 3920 and RFC 3921) framework.

Net::XMPP2::Connection is a RFC 3920 conformant "XML" stream implementation for clients, which handles TCP connect up to the resource binding. And provides low level access to the XML nodes on the XML stream along with some high level methods to send the predefined XML stanzas.

Net::XMPP2::IM::Connection is a more high level module, which is derived from Net::XMPP2::Connection. It handles all the instant messaging client functionality described in RFC 3921.

Net::XMPP2::Client is a multi account client class. It manages connections to multiple XMPP accounts and tries to offer a nice high level interface to XMPP communication.

For a list of "Supported extensions" see below.

There are also other modules in this distribution, for example: Net::XMPP2::Util, Net::XMPP2::Writer, Net::XMPP2::Parser and those I forgot :-) Those modules might be helpful and/or required if you want to use this framework for XMPP.

See also Net::XMPP2::Writer for a discussion about the brokeness of XML in the XMPP specification.

If you have any questions or seek for help look below under "SUPPORT".

REQUIREMENTS

One of the major drawbacks I see for Net::XMPP2 is the long list of required modules to make it work.

AnyEvent

For the I/O events and timers.

XML::Writer

For writing "XML".

XML::Parser::Expat

For parsing partial "XML" stuff.

MIME::Base64

For SASL authentication

Authen::SASL

For SASL authentication

Net::LibIDN

For stringprep profiles to handle JIDs.

Net::SSLeay

For SSL connections.

Net::DNS

For SRV RR lookups.

Digest::SHA1

For component authentication and old-style authentication.

And yes, all these are essential for XMPP communication. Even though 'instant messaging' and 'presence' is a quite simple problem XMPP somehow was successful at making the task complicated enough to keep me busy for a long time. But all of that time wasn't only for the technology required to get it started, mostly it was for all the quirks, hacks and badly applied "XML" in the protocol which complicated the matter.

RELEASE NOTES

Here are some notes to the last releases (release of this version is at top):

Version

  • 0.08

    Lots of bugfixes and minor changes you might want to read about in the Changes file. Added some examples which might be useful.

    Introduced a character filter on the low XML writer level which will filter out not allowed XML characters to prevent unexpected disconnects. Arguably this is the programmers fault but I hope noone is confuses if this module tries everything to be as reliable as possible.

  • 0.07

    Many small changes in Net::XMPP2::Event. Implemented XEP-0199 (XMPP Ping) and also whitespace pings in Net::XMPP2::Connection.

    Also fixed some bugs.

    For further details look in the Changes file.

  • 0.06

    The event API has been changed a bit, it's possible to intercept events now, see Net::XMPP2::Event.

    Implemented the old legacy XEP-0078 (IQ authentication), see also Net::XMPP2::Ext for some notes about it.

    Some bugs with JID preps have been fixed and some functions for JID handling have been added to Net::XMPP2::Util.

    Reworked the subscription system a bit, you now have to reply with 'subscribed' yourself, etc. (See also Net::XMPP2::IM::Connection about subscriptions).

    Implemented following new XEPs:

    - XEP-0082 - XMPP Date and Time Profiles
- XEP-0091 - Delayed Delivery (legacy)
- XEP-0092 - Software Version
- XEP-0203 - Delayed Delivery (new)

    For further information about them see Net::XMPP2::Ext.

    I also started an implementation of XEP-0045 (Multi User Chats), please consult the test t/z_05_muc.t and the API at Net::XMPP2::Ext::MUC for the already working features. (Very basic MUCing should work, but there are lots of edges still with error reporting and all the other nice features).

    Also enhanced the message API a bit see Net::XMPP2::IM::Message and the methods of other classes that generate messages (eg. like make_message).

    There has been a considerable efford in test writing. Added instructions about the test suite below in section "TEST SUITE".

    And another API change: reply_iq_result and reply_iq_error now attach a from attribute themselves (see Net::XMPP2::Connection).

  • 0.05

    I added some unit tests and fixed a lot of bugs. The unit tests are mostly for me (the AUTHOR) to not accidentally release a buggy version with too ugly show stopper bugs.

    The tests require network access to a jabber server and won't run unless you set the right environment variable. If you want to run these tests yourself you might want to take a look at Net::XMPP2::TestClient.

  • 0.04

    After realizing that in band registration in Net::XMPP2::Ext was already in in version 0.03 I finally had to implement it.

    While implementing in band registration I implemented XEP-0066: Out of Band Data. You can now receive and send URLs from and to others. See also Net::XMPP2::Ext::OOB.

    I also fixed some bugs in Net::XMPP2::Ext::Disco.

  • older

    For older release notes please have a look at the Changes file or CPAN.

TODO

There are still lots of items on the TODO list (see also the TODO file in the distribution of Net::XMPP2).

TEST SUITE

If you are a developer and want to test either a server or maybe just whether this module passes some basic tests you might want to run the developer test suite.

This test suite is not enabled by default because it requires some human interaction to set it up, please see Net::XMPP2::TestClient for hints about the setup procedure for the test suite.

I wrote the test suite mostly because I wanted to make sure I didn't break something essential before a release. The tests don't cover everything and I don't plan to write a test for every single function in the API, that would slow down development considerably for me. But I hope that some grave show stopper bugs in releases are prevented with this test suite.

The tests are also useful if you want to test a server implementation. But there are maybe of course conformance issues with Net::XMPP2 itself, so if you find something where Net::XMPP2 doesn't conform to the XMPP RFCs or XEPs consult the BUGS section below.

If you find a server that doesn't handle something correctly but you need to interact with it you are free to implement workarounds and send me a patch, or even ask me whether I might want to look into the issue (I can't gurantee anything here, but I want this module to be as interoperable as possible. But if the implementation of a workaround for some non-conformant software will complicate the code too much I'm probably not going to implement it.).

Of course, if you find a bug in some server implementation don't forget to file a bugreport to them, one hack less in Net::XMPP2 means more time for bug fixing and improvements and new features.

Why (yet) another XMPP module?

The main outstanding feature of this module in comparison to the other XMPP (aka Jabber) modules out there is the support for AnyEvent. AnyEvent permits you to use this module together with other I/O event based programs and libraries (ie. Gtk2 or Event).

The other modules could often only be integrated in those applications or libraries by using threads. I decided to write this module because I think CPAN lacks an event based XMPP module. Threads are unfortunately not an alternative in Perl at the moment due the limited threading functionality they provide and the global speed hit. I also think that a simple event based I/O framework might be a bit easier to handle than threads.

Another thing was that I didn't like the APIs of the other modules. In Net::XMPP2 I try to provide low level modules for speaking XMPP as defined in RFC 3920 and RFC 3921 (see also Net::XMPP2::Connection and Net::XMPP2::IM::Connection). But I also try to provide a high level API for easier usage for instant messaging tasks and clients (eg. Net::XMPP2::Client).

A note about TLS

This module also supports TLS, as the specification of XMPP requires an implementation to support TLS.

Maybe there are still some bugs in the handling of TLS in Net::XMPP2::Connection. So keep an eye on TLS with this module. If you encounter any problems it would be very helpful if you could debug them or at least send me a detailed report on how to reproduce the problem.

(As I use this module myself I don't expect TLS to be completly broken, but it might break under different circumstances than I have here. Those circumstances might be a different load of data pumped through the TLS connection.)

I mainly expect problems where available data isn't properly read from the socket or written to it. You might want to take a look at the debug_send and debug_recv events in Net::XMPP2::Connection.

Supported extensions

See Net::XMPP2::Ext for a list.

EXAMPLES

Following examples are included in this distribution:

samples/simple_example_1

This example script just connects to a server and sends a message and also displays incoming messages on stdout.

samples/devcl/devcl

This is a more advanced 'example'. It requires you to have Gtk2 installed. It's mostly used by the author to implement proof-of-concepts. Currently you start the client like this:

../Net-XMPP2/samples/devcl/# perl ./devcl <jid> <password>

The client's main window displays a protocol dump and there is currently a service discovery browser implemented.

This might be a valuable source if you look for more real-world applications of Net::XMPP2.

samples/conference_lister

See below.

samples/room_lister

See below.

samples/room_lister_stat

These three scripts implements a global room scan. conference_lister takes a list of servers (the file is called servers.xml which has the same format as the xml file at http://www.jabber.org/servers.xml). It then scans all servers for chat room services and lists them into a file conferences.stor, which is a Storable dump.

room_lister then reads that file and queries all services for rooms, and then all rooms for their occupants. The output file is room_data.stor, also a Storable dump, which in turn can be read with room_lister_stat, which transform the data structures into something human readable.

These scripts are a bit hacky and quite complicated, but maybe it's of any value for someone. You might note "EVQ.pm" in samples which is a module that handles request-throttling (You don't want to flood the server and risk getting the admins attention :).

samples/simple_component

This is a (basic) skeleton for a jabber component.

samples/simple_oob_retriever

This is a simple out of band file transfer receiver bot. It uses curl to fetch the files and also has the sample functionality of sending a file url for someone who sends the bot a 'send <filename>' message.

samples/simple_register_example

This is a example script which allows you to register, unregister and change your password for accounts. Execute it without arguments for more details.

samples/disco_info

This is a small example tool that allows you to fetch the software version, disco info and disco items information about a JID.

samples/talkbot

This is a simple bot that will read lines from a file and recite them when you send it a message. It will also automatically allow you to subscribe to it. Start it without commandline arguments to be informed about the usage.

samples/retrieve_roster

This is a simple example script that will retrieve the roster for an account and print it to stdout. You start it like this:

samples/# ./retrieve_roster <jid> <password>

For others, which the author might forgot or didn't want to list here see the samples/ directory.

More examples will be included in later releases, please feel free to ask the "AUTHOR" if you have any questions about the API. There is also an IRC channel, see "SUPPORT".

AUTHOR

Robin Redeker, <elmex at ta-sa.org>, JID: <elmex at jabber.org>

BUGS

Please note that I'm currently (July 2007) the only developer on this project and I'm very busy with my studies in Computer Science in Summer 2007. If you want to ease my workload or want timely releases, please send me patches instead of bug reports or feature requests. I won't forget the reports or requests if you can't or didn't send patches, but I can't gurantee immediate response. But I will of course try to fix/implement them as soon as possible!

Also try to be as precise as possible with bug reports, if you can't send a patch, it would be best if you find out which code doesn't work and tell me why.

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-net-xmpp2 at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Net-XMPP2. I will be notified and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

perldoc Net::XMPP2

You can also look for information at:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to the XSF for the development of an open instant messaging protocol (even though it uses "XML").

And thanks to all people who had to listen to my desperate curses about the brokenness/braindeadness of XMPP. Without you I would've never brought this module to a usable state.

Thanks to:

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

Copyright 2007 Robin Redeker, all rights reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.