This thread aims to collect your uses of XMPP within Yunohost and it’s apps.
Yunohost (up to current stable version 11) was onboarding the XMPP server Metronome, allowing to make all your users to automatically benefit an XMPP account.
In order to provide the best Prosody app, it is proposed to collect here your current or wished uses of XMPP for your Yunohost server. Especially if you have specific uses (Jitsi, PeerTube chat module, …). If in the below comment a use case match your own use, please vote with the function!
my current Metronome use is for personal IM within the closer family (up to 6 accounts), not any public chat rooms or public channels, so server load is pretty low as I have not set up video/audio call features. It serves us well.
IMO Prosody should provide a complete audio/video call features with the default YNH package without extra steps and configuration (coturn,…)
I think Prosody is a good step forward in terms of a more complete xmpp solution with all its modules. One I would also integrate is UnifiedPush provider module, then it could be used to integrate many notification (opt-in) from our server (ex. backup result, hit resources limit,…) and also for extenal apps that take advantage of this google-free push system. I think many people here is sensible to this feature.
I’m not a heavy or advanced user case, but jabber/xmpp is a nice feature we take advantage daily.
Thank you for asking our opinion before the final release of YNH 12
I have moved my mobile number to a SIP provider. I use XMPP to send and receive SMS via an API which I have provided to the SIP company which has been implemented in Node Red. Incoming messages are checked against contacts stored in Nextcloud. If the sender’s number is unknown then the message is forwarded to my XMPP account, otherwise an autoreply is sent telling them that I don’t use SMS and they should contact me via Signal. I would prefer they use XMPP but, as most people I know are non-technically minded, Signal requires no explanation for them. So Prosody or Metronome are both good for me.
I am using YNH now for over 10 years and have never used XMPP and have only be annoyed by the DNS errors it creates. Glad to have it removed from the core.
I use metronome, i never switched for prosody.
Used it in private local group chat and public ones
Used it in a peertube groupchat without any quirks, also did few video and audio calls.
XMPP always been my prefered choice of communication over Matrix or Signal since it was integrated so well in ynh and easy to use (thats why i never got to prosody).
almost never had problems with it, combined with a nice client, it get to my expectation.
Fine with both, if prosody offer a same or better service with the same ease, its a win-win.
Using xmpp to chat with users from my server (~ six) but also with external contacts without any problem.
I needed only to configure correctly metronome to accept different type of file for transferring between users.
I’ve been using XMMP for years with family and friends and have tried a few times to run my own instance using Metronome. I often had issues, particularly with OMEMO key exchange.
Initiating a chat would hang indefinitely until the other person responded, regardless of the client used (I use Conversations myself on mobile).
You need to have each other in your contact list (roster);
With each client, exchange a not-encrypted message at once to get the OMEMO key.
It’s not the most user-friendly process when it comes to OMEMO key exchange. I’m not sure if this is something that Metronome is to blame for, but I hope Prosody will do better.
Personally, my use-case would be rather low usage, just to communicate with others on my server (maybe up to 4 maximum). Video and audio calling would be nice, plus OMEMO support.
One thing I would like to see is documentation that explains well how to configure Prosody – informative and accessible. I tried earlier this year with Metronome and it felt as though what I found was too brief and too technically in-depth for people who are new to XMPP or setting up an XMPP server.
Slightly off-chart from the question, but I thought the comment could be of some use:
Since I installed yunohost I never used xmpp. I had some bad experiences with it before putting up the server (don’t remember precisely, but weird bugs with conversation, the client), so I had decided to turn to matrix/synapse.
When I saw xmpp would be removed from core, I though “cool, don’t need to have installed by default something not used”. But after a bit, I noticed I had a new app installed, that I never asked for: prosody. Which I think peertube installed for it’s chatting feature. So it seems it’s not like xmpp functionalities are going to be removed really from the server in the next version (in my situation), but at least metronome will.
Recently, as the server starts being more solicited, synapse is becoming a problem because of it’s quite high consumption of resources, even for very few users, so I’m starting reconsidering xmpp.
So I’d say an important consideration with the prosody app would be to try to keep it’s resources consumption low by default, so that simple users don’t get a bloated server, which seems to be the case by default with synapse, until one find time to learn to tweak and limit it’s consumption.
I figured I’d cast my vote on this having used Yunohost for maybe 7ish years and 5 years of that one of the main functions was a chat server Synapse mostly, yes it was a bit bloated and finicky, but it had all the modern features. I had tried Metronome in the beginning but it didn’t go well, dont really remember why. So I used another project to get an XMPP server setup and fully configured, it worked well but that project died. So I setup Synapse on my Yunohost. I recently tried Metronome again since I upgraded to a more powerful server and as I recall it lacked the polish I wanted. Issues with messages being delivered if someone was offline, read receipts, and OMEMO are things I recall having issues. It was lacking the little extras that make something modern and more usable especially with mobile clients (conversations). I think I gave prosody a go too, but ran into an issue and called it. In the end I set up a snikket server, it’s written by the developer of prosody I think and it was super easy to set up. Like 30 min from signing up a new VPS to having it running, and it was the first time I ever used docker. It’s got the full featured and modern things set up from the beginning, very little config to mess with. Possibly it’s a good option going forward, snikket.org. I completely support yunohost having an XMPP server, I would just encourage it to be a fully featured one, with all the modern stuff, audio and video calls etc. No big if I have to click to install it, that’s what makes yunohost great, it’s easy. But yeah, that’s my take. Thanks for such a great project.
I’ve started working on packaging Snikket, I didn’t really understand what the XMPP integration meant in YunoHost in the beginning. I’m only beginning to test Metronome but for the sake of a unified app I might prefer Snikket anyway. But it could also use some work.
Thanks to all of you who took time to give your feedback !
For those who were deceived from their experience with Metronome, this app exactly aims at making your XMPP server work out of the box (which is much more easy thanks to Prosody). So we would be honored if you decide to give a new try with this app!
Yunohost 12 is now released and this app has now reached a rather good maturity (beta), before an official release in the very near future, contributions to test are warmly welcomed
hello @anubis I installed it on my ynh followin all instructions and it works for chat, except for my main user. I created a new user and it works fine, also I can text other previous existing contacts, but not use my previous personal user. Could it be some old config from metronome, should I delete or edit something? In the installation process I chose to keep metronome settings.
I tried call but it’s not working. Coturn is not starting after a server reboot, should I just run “sudo systemctl enable coturn”?
In general it’s a great experience, thanks.
I tried removing prosody and reinstalling with the option not to keep metronome settings, but still same problem remain: my previous user gives me “wrong password” both on gajim and conversations.
the previous user has no email alias, should I create one and try it? I try to reset the passwd of that user using prosodyctl, but it does not work as user are being managed by ynh user system. I tried changing the passwd from ynh users menu, but still on xmpp it gives me wrong passwd…
Regarding coturn, I did a “systemctl enable coturn” and the system took it, will see how it goes after next reboot. But call are working, I needed to allow calls on lua config file though.
function!
