[jdev] Flash Proxy (was: Jabberd2, Flash Client...)

[Richard Dobson]

> Richard - thanks for the very thorough outline. Once the Flash client is
> done with initial negotiations and reverts to XMPP, does the proxy just
> sort of become a "dumb router" in the sense that it merely strips the
> zero-byte of the incoming data (from Flash) and sends it on it's merry
> way? I guess my question is why the need to develop a proxy control
> protocol when we could just use XMPP?

Because you cant just use standard Jabber/XMPP. The <stream:stream> does not
work (you have shown that you can send it, but I would expect when you get
the returning <stream:stream> it would blow up since flash is expecting a
complete xml chunk, hence why you cant just use standard Jabber/XMPP), also
you cant just use Jabber/XMPP because it does not contain any of the needed
control commands such as the command I detailed at step 2 that tells the
proxy to connect to the server, also the login stuff at step 4 could be done
with normal Jabber/XMPP SASL but IMO its far better to move the more complex
processing stuff into the proxy such as handling all the SASL stuff etc
rather than in the flash, also when I say reverts back to normal Jabber/XMPP
all it means is it will pass the <presence> <iq> and <message> stanza's
along essentially untouched, although if you do get any more <stream:stream>
level stanza's these will be handled by the proxy and converted into the
proxy control protocol (the proxy control protocol is basically just a layer
to replace the <stream:stream> level stanza's, and contains the
functionaility necessary to complete its proxy functionality).

There is nothing stopping us from making the protocol I described looking
more Jabber/XMPP'ish if needed as all I was trying to do was illustrate in a
simple way how I was thinking it would work. Also since we cant use standard
Jabber/XMPP we shouldnt just be hacking the existing parts that wont work
IMO so they do, that just makes things messy later on, IMO its far better to
start with a clean slate as it were and simply replace the part that does
not work (<stream:stream>) with something that does work and is as simple as
possible, just like happens in JEP-0124 (the <stream:stream> aspect has been
removed and replaced with its own more appropriate protocol).

Richard