Secure chat for our company
Our developers like to hang out in a chat room / irc channel so they can keep in casual contact all day. And staff at our company are hooked on IM, especially with our diverse locations. Being conscious of security, especially with everyone using wireless these days, I sought a solution.
After many blind alleys, it seems that the Jabber protocol is the answer. I looked for a VMWare appliance without much luck (there is a simple one or two around but the config looked more than I was willing to tackle). Then I found openfire (formerly wildfire). I had a Windows XP box handy, so I downloaded and ran the install program (the complete version including Java) and … for a change … everything just worked!
A few little quirks bit me as everyone tried to switch to using it. E.g.
- the username is username@machinename – in this case I had a goofy machine name because the machine had been destined for something else
- if OTR is installed, some clients get upset when they try to group chat
But overall, it was amazingly simple. I’m not sure if I have it locked down tight enough yet, but its a beginning!
