Installing Openfire

1. Log into the Ubuntu server dedicated for Openfire.
2. Update the server.
   • apt-get update
   • apt-get dist-upgrade
3. Install the necessary programs for Openfire.
   • apt-get install apache2 php5 libapache2-mod-php5 mysql-server-5.0 sun-java6-bin 
4. Before we download Openfire we need to first add the Openfire database and user.
   • mysql -u root -p
   • create database openfire;
   • grant all on openfire.* to openfire@localhost IDENTIFIED BY "password";
   • exit
5. Change directories to /opt
   • wget http://www.igniterealtime.org/downloadServlet?filename=openfire/openfire_3_6_4.tar.gz
   • tar -xzvf openfire_3_6_4.tar.gz
   • cd openfire/bin
   • ./openfire start
6. Openfire may take a minute to start up, but once ready should be accessible via the web interface.
   • http://server_ip:9090
7. You will now be directed through a bunch of screens to help initially configure Openfire.

Choose your language and continue.

The domain you enter in this field will be used as the appendix for you username. In this case my user would look something like first.last@dueyesterday.net. 

We are using MySQL, so we will be choosing the Standard Database Connection option.

Fill in the database connection information  using the openfire database, username created and password for that username. It is best to not let Openfire run as root and instead use the created name.

As previously mentioned, we will be using Active Directory to authenticate our users. Choose the LDAP option if you plan to do the same (this demo assumes you choose LDAP).

When you have the connection information filled in, test it out using the "Test Settings" button.

By default, Openfire will fill in various LDAP attributes that could be used. These can be left as they are or customized for your environment. 

Like the LDAP attributes for a profile, you can also setup group mapping. These too can be left as their default values.

Lastly, add a user to the administrators group.

Setup is now complete.

You can now log into the Administrator panel.

Once logged in, you will have access to all the options Openfire provides. For the sake of this demo we will only cover chat specific configurations.

If you navigate to the "Plugins" menu from the top navigation you can see every plugin available in a standard Openfire installation. 

Here is a list of plugins I have installed and found useful for chatting.

One of the last things we want to do to configure Openfire is to navigate to "Server Settings" under "Server" and then to "HTTP Binding". Enable the script syntax option.