zh / paas

Presence As A Service - using XMPP presences for microblogging, online status displaying etc

What is PaaS

Presence-As-A-Service (PaaS) is using XMPP presence stanzas for microblogging, online status displaying etc.

Why?

• Because Google XMPP implementation sucks
• Because XMPP presences are uncomplete (missing timestamp)
• Need it for other services (ReaTiWe)

How?

Install

• Needed gems: eventmachine, xmpp4r, xmpp4r-simple, json, ratom, httpclient, sequel, sinatra
• Copy myconfig.rb.dist to myconfig.rb and adjust your settings
• Start the bot (this will create also database [sqlite3], if missing): ruby ./bot.rb
• Start the API:
  • via rackup: rackup -p 8080
  • standalone: ruby ./api.rb -p 8080
• Start the bot AND the API: ruby ./bot.rb -a -p 8080

Usage

• Add the bot to your roster
• PING to test the connection
• HELP to see the available bot commands
• Send LOGIN command to register (and accept the authorization request)
• Change your nick - NICK ... to hide your real JID
• Enable PuSH publishing - ON
• All your presence changes will be saved - time, status, message
• To trac only some presences (extended away - XA) - QUIET

What you've get?

Web (HTTP services)

• /last/:nick/:type - Text/image (.png) user status (status, message, timestamp)
• /atom/:nick - Atom feed with latest 10 presences (pinging PuSH hub on update)
• /photo/:nick - Return the XMPP Vcard photo ("PHOTO/BINVAL")
• /json (optional ?callback=... parameter) JSON/JSONP with latest 10 presences
• /stream and /user/:nick - demo services

XMPP (bot commands)

• HELP, H, help, ? : List all local commands
• PING, P, ping : Connection test
• LOGIN, L, login : Register in the system
• ONLINE, O, online : Online users list
• STAT[US], S, stat[us] [JID] : Get JID status - 'away' etc.
• NICK, N, nick [name] : Change/show your nick (2-16 chars, [A-Za-z0-9_])
• MSG, M, msg {nick} {text} : Direct message {text} to user {nick}
• ON/OFF, on/off : Enable/disable presences sharing
• QUIET/VERBOSE, quiet/verbose : Trac all or only XA presences

You can make your own install, or use the [e-mail] bot and http://status.zhware.net/ URL for API calls and to see the results.