[JDEV] Jabber DevZone News - jer - Jabber Server 1.4 Released

[Peter Saint-Andre]

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Peter

--
Peter Saint-Andre
stpeter at jabber.org

Jabber DevZone wrote:
> 
> Jabber Server 1.4 Released
> 
> The sources can be found at
> http://download.jabber.org/dists/1.4/final/ (binaries and packages
> available in contrib).  Besides being our easiest release ever in
> terms of installation and ongoing administration, the 1.4 server
> contains a general round of bug fixes and stability enhancements,
> making it the most stable Jabber server platform to date. The focus of
> development has been on stabilizing the server architecture introduced
> in 1.2, enabling all of the standard services (including transports)
> to work smoothly, and adding many new features. The entire server team
> has worked hard to ensure that the 1.4 release is an incredible IM
> platform and a significant step forward in advancing Jabber as an open
> XML architecture.  Because of the increased stability of the 1.4
> server as well as the availability of improved transports and other
> server add-ons to coincide with this release, now is a great time to
> upgrade your old 1.0 or 1.2 server. To make this easier, we have been
> putting more effort into documentation, and there is a new HOWTO for
> the 1.4 server that is now available at http://docs.jabber.org/. In
> addition, we've created a new mailing list especially for Jabber
> server administrators, the sign-up page is located at
> http://mailman.jabber.org/listinfo/jadmin/.  The 1.4 server is
> available in various formats for many platforms and has been built
> successfully on a wide range of Linux and Unix platforms. If there is
> not a package or binary available for your platform, it is very easy
> to build from source and should work on almost every Unix platform.
> There is also a 'make static' option available for platforms that do
> not have the standard dynamic loading capabilities. In addition, a
> combined and pre-configured package of all the transports and base
> server should be available shortly.  Compatible versions of all of the
> major transports/services are available with this release as separate
> tarballs and are very easy to add to the base server (see the HOWTO
> for details). While some of these are officially still in beta, the
> quality of the transports has improved dramatically and release
> candidate or final versions will be available in the coming weeks. The
> components currently available are:   Conference (supports the 1.0
> presence-based and 1.4 draft protocols)   Jabber Users Directory
> (limited non-DB version for small servers only, the mysql and perl
> based 'users-agent' is preferred for larger installations)   IRC (1.4
> draft conferencing support only, will be available shortly)   AIM,
> ICQ, MSN, Yahoo   The recent protocol enhancements supported at this
> time (some client-side and some server-side) are listed at
> http://docs.jabber.org/draft-proto/ and include:   authentication:
> support for zero-knowledge authentication, for more secure login
> browsing: a friendly way for clients and users to access the list of
> services available on a server or for a user   cryptography: support
> for end-to-end encryption of messages and presence   message
> expiration: allow a user to specify how long a message should be
> stored offline before being deleted   message formatting: support for
> XHTML-Basic to format messages   server dialback: a security mechanism
> to prevent server spoofing   time-based queries: querying sevice
> uptime, user last-login times, and client idle time   xml storage:
> generic xml can be stored in any namespace under a user account
> privately or made public so that anyone can access it   conferencing:
> an extensible protocol for managing and accessing the list of
> participants in a multi-party conference room  New administration
> features in 1.4 include:   general server-wide announcement messages
> automatic welcome messages after registration   message of the day,
> delivered only once after next login   administrators can browse to
> view the list of online users   users can have certain groups in their
> roster that are automatically managed and configured   As with 1.2,
> extensibility is an important focus and continues to advance with this
> version. The architecture is fundamentally a distributed xml-based
> component architecture, so any piece can be replaced or distributed
> across the network in any language and new components can be added
> dynamically to the server similiarly to adding cgi scripts to a web
> server. The session manager component also contains a module API
> allowing server logic and user packet processing to be modified or
> extended. The data access layer (XDB) is also abstraced allowing user
> and server data to be stored in any data source; files (default), SQL
> database, LDAP, etc. Socket management is also abstracted, allowing
> socket handling to be implemented in a platform or performance
> specific way (a new Linux-based scaling socket multiplexer project is
> being started in conjunction with the Open Source Development Lab).
> Taking a peek into the future, the server team is going to be focusing
> on the 1.4.X series for some time. This release is the first stable
> platform that we are all excited about and plan on building on top of.
> Look for upcoming point releases that enhance stability, performance,
> and farming-based configurations. The server team and other members of
> the Jabber community are already working on many new components that
> will transparently extend the Jabber platform even further, such as
> http (web based clients, SOAP), email/SMTP, VoIP (SIP), whiteboarding
> (SXPM and SVG), calendaring, and many more.  The 1.4 server gives us a
> solid, long-lasting platform for instant messaging as well as for
> developing of a variety of exciting new applications that make use of
> Jabber to tap into information and connect people together. Your
> feedback is welcome and we hope you'll join the conversation!
> 
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