[jdev] Release announcement: jabberd14 1.6.0 ("Sunday") is available

[Matthias Wimmer]

Hi!

I am very happy to be finally able to announce the availability of 
version 1.6.0 of jabberd14.

http://download.jabberd.org/jabberd14/


New features of version 1.6.0 include:

- jabberd14 used with the jadc2s client connection
   manager now fully supports the XMPP RFCs 3920 and 3921.

- Support for Privacy Lists

- jabberd14 can send its messages to users in
   different languages. Already supported are Dutch,
   English, French, German, Hungarian and Italian.
   Other languages can be added by installing additional
   language files.

- SASL authentication is possible on client links as well as
   on inter-server links. (For client links you have
   to use the jadc2s connection manager to use SASL.)
   (At least the following mechanisms should be supported for
   client authentication: CRAM-MD5, PLAIN, GSSAPI, DIGEST-MD5,
   NTLM, SRP, OTP, KERBEROS_V4 - on inter-server links EXTERNAL
   using certificate based authentication is supported.)

- Support for Flexible Offline Message Retrieval (XEP-0013).

- Support for XMPP Ping (XEP-0199)

- Full namespace support.

- Support for xml:lang.

- Passing full subscription request stanza to a user, even when
   the subscription request has to be stored offline. Allowing
   the requestor to pass additional data together with the
   request.

- Fix in handling presences with negative priority. Messages
   that are stored offline, are now delivered if a session
   changes from negative to non-negative priority.

- Easy integration of jabberd14 into web projects by having
   additional data available in the database (e.g. presence
   information can now be read by a web page with a single
   SQL SELECT statement.)

- New base habdler base_dir, that can periodically check a
   directory for *.stanza files. These files are read, parsed,
   the content is processed as a stanza, and the file is deleted
   afterwards. This can be useful to inject messages (or other
   stanzas) to the server, e.g. to send Jabber messages using
   scripts on a web page. The server can also deliver messages
   (or other stanzas) back to this directory.

- Passwords are no longer cached in memroy by the server. They
   can just be changed in the SQL database and get active
   instantly. New users can also be created, by just adding
   a new password to the database.

- It is now possible to block account names from being registered
   and to enforce minimum and maximum lengths of the username
   on registration of new accounts.

- After an account has been deleted by the user, the JabberID is
   blocked against reregistration for a configurable amount
   of time (defaults to half a year).

- It is easily possible to migrate from old filespools (xdb_file,
   i.e. one XML file per user to store settings) to newer storage
   handlers by reconfiguring the server and then importing
   the old data (using the -I command line option).

- All components of the server including the session manager, but
   the client connection manager, can now be restarted without
   user's sessions being dropped. This allows reconfiguration
   and software upgrades while the server has online users.

- The session manager now understands the internal session
   protocol of jabberd2 as well. This allows development and usage
   of components acting as client manager, for both server
   implementations at the same time.

- Inter-server communication can now be authenticated using
   SASL EXTERNAL and X.509 certificates (SSL certificates).
       	
- The inter-server communications can now be configured to require
   encryption or strong authentication using X.509 certificates.
       	
- xdb_sql can be configured to execute an SQL query just after
   a connection to the database server has been established or
   reestablished. This is usefule for example if you are using
   MySQL 4.1+ and want to set your used charset (SET NAMES UTF8).

- jabberd14 now uses libpopt for command line parsing.
       	
- Stale pidfiles are now detected and ignored.

- The list of online users has to be fetched using service
   discovery now (instead of the older browsing protocol).

- Removed support for the jabber:iq:admin namespace, which
   probably has not been used anymore at all.

- Disabled support for the jabber:iq:agent and jabber:iq:agents
   protocols in the default configuration file. (Can be
   re-enabled if needed.)

- Removed support for the jabber:iq:filter namespace (which
   had already been disabled in the default configuration file
   of version 1.4.4.

- Removed the mod_groups module.

- The list of supported features returned on a service discovery
   request need not be configured anymore, as it is now generated
   automatically.

The new version of jabberd14 is at least already in use on the following 
servers: amessage.*, jabber.ccc.de, swissjabber.*, syndicon.de.

Because I have been asked several times: jabberd14 1.6.0 is still 
dual-licenced JOSL and GPL - which the GPL licence having the problem, 
that it does not contain an OpenSSL exception. I am working on this 
problem. As I did not manage to get permission from all copyright owners 
to add the OpenSSL exception, I am working on a version of jabberd14, 
that will use GnuTLS instead of OpenSSL. I expect to be able to release 
a GnuTLS version of jabberd14 soon as well.

I want to thank all people that supported me in creating this new 
release by providing feedback, bug reports, translations and sugestions. 
People that have been very active are: Florian Holzhauer, István Bubreg, 
Jean de Largentaye, Marco Balmer, Philipp Hancke, Peter Schwindt, Sander 
Devrieze, and Stefano Sabatini. (I hope I did not forget anybody.)



And to all users, administrators and developpers of Jabber I wish a 
merry christmas.


Matthias