node-xmpp
idiomatic XMPP library for node.js
Now usable in browsers too thanks to Browserify.
Roadmap for 0.4.0
- Events harmonization
- Common pause/resume/... for any Client/Component/Server session
- Smoothen reconnect
- Websockets server (at least for testing the client)
- Lookup BOSH URLs in DNS TXT records
- Move connecting to connection, use WS/BOSH as TCP fallback
- Use split-out srv library
- Ensure tls end/close/drain events
- Properly disconnect on stream errors, not on connection errors
- Tests for S2S connections
- Tests for Component connections (w/ Component server?)
- Find a browser-based demo app that can be switched from Strophe.js
Installation
With package manager npm:
npm install node-xmpp
Objectives of node-xmpp:
- Use node.js conventions, especially
EventEmitter
, ie. for write buffer control - Fast parsing,
node-expat
was written for this library - Client support for both XMPP clients and components
- Optional server infrastructure with
Router
- After authentication, leave trivial protocol bits to the user, that is XML handling according to any XEP
Features
- Client authentication with SASL DIGEST-MD5, PLAIN, ANONYMOUS, X-FACEBOOK-PLATFORM
_xmpp-client._tcp
SRV record support- Simple JID parsing with Stringprep normalization
- Optional now, you won't need ICU for just node-xmpp
- Please be aware if you identify users by JIDs
npm install node-stringprep
- Uses ltx
- Much easier to handle than a standard DOM
- xmlns-aware
- Easy XML builder like Strophe.js (see down)
- Non-buffering serialization
- Was split out of node-xmpp for modularization and resuability
- Component connections
- Run your own server/talk to other servers with
xmpp.Router
Dependencies
- node-expat (requires libexpat!)
- ltx
Optional
- node-stringprep: for icu-based string normalization.
Related Libraries
- node-xmpp-bosh: BOSH & websocket server (connection manager)
- node-xmpp-via-bosh: BOSH client connections from node.js
- node-simple-xmpp: Simpler high-level client layer
- xmpp-server: Reusable XMPP server on top of node-xmpp
- node-xmpp-joap: Jabber Object Access Protocol (XEP-0075) library for node-xmpp
- node-xmpp-serviceadmin: Service Administration (XEP-0133) library for node-xmpp
Design
Inheritance tree and associations:
┌────────────┐1 1┌────────────┐
│ net.Stream ├───────┤ Connection │
└────────────┘ └────────────┘
↑
┌────────────┬───────┴───┬────────────┐
│ │ │ │
┏━━━━━┷━━━━┓ ┏━━━━━┷━━━━━┓ ┌───┴────┐ ┌─────┴─────┐
┃ Client ┃ ┃ Component ┃ │ Server │ │ C2SStream │
┗━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┗━━━━━━━━━━━┛ └────────┘ └───────────┘
↑ ↑0..*
┌─────────────────────┤ │accepts
│ │ │1
┌────────┴───────┐ ┌───────────┴────┐ ┏━━━━━┷━━━━━┓
│ OutgoingServer │ │ IncomingServer │ ┃ C2SServer ┃
└─────────────┬──┘ └───┬────────────┘ ┗━━━━━┯━━━━━┛
0..* │ │ 0..* │
creates │ │ accepts │
┏┷━━━━━━━━┷┓ │
┃ Router ┃←──────────────────┘
┗━━━━━━━━━━┛ 1
This foundation is complemented by two basic data structures:
- JID: a Jabber-Id, represented as a triple of
user
,domain
,resource
- Element: any XML Element
Building XML Elements
Strophe.js' XML Builder is very convenient for producing XMPP
stanzas. ltx includes it in a much more primitive way: the
c()
, cnode()
and t()
methods can be called on any Element
object, returning the new child element.
This can be confusing: in the end, you will hold the last-added child
until you use up()
, a getter for the parent. Connection.send()
first invokes tree()
to retrieve the uppermost parent, the XMPP
stanza, before sending it out the wire.