Which XMPP chat server?

[SimonLiu]

Hi,

The online documentation doesn't say which chat server to use with Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS.

I've tried testing it with the free Openfire XMPP server:
http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/openfire/

Most things work fine, such as two-person chats, sending graphics and map extents, etc. However, the chatrooms don't work. Dashboard can create new rooms, but messages typed in them never get displayed, and two users in the same room can't see each other.

I've also tested using the ejabberd server and saw similar problems:
http://www.process-one.net/en/ejabberd/downloads

It seems that Dashboard's implementation of XMPP MUC (Multi-User Chat) isn't compatible with either of the servers I've tested. I attended the Holistic Testing session for Dashboard back in October and was told there's a proprietary chat library client-side. Do Esri recommend a particular chat server, and if so could this information be displayed in the online help?

Many thanks,
Simon

[SimonLiu]

A quick update:

I installed ejabberd on another machine and everything (including group chat) seems to work now. I'm not sure what's changed, but I don't have time to investigate this further.

I'm still having problems with group chat using Openfire (version 3.8.1 for Windows) on this new machine.

For reference, my successful setup is running ejabberd 2.1.11 on Windows 7 (64-bit), downloaded from the link in the previous post. The firewall is disabled on the server.

In the absence of other information, it seems ejabberd is a viable choice for a chat server with Dashboard. YMMV, of course.