XMPP 0.0.3

XMPP 0.0.3

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Maintained by ProcessOne.

XMPP 0.0.3

Fluux XMPP

Fluux XMPP is a Chat SDK in Swift for iOS, MacOS and Linux. It implements the XMPP protocol which is an IETF standard.

Fluux XMPP is a clean slate implementation, with the following goals in mind:

  • Focus on simplicity, by hiding XMPP technical details and exposing only chat oriented methods.
  • Focus on modern Swift, recent iOS version and modern XMPP. The library ignores legacy or deprecated features on purpose.
  • Focus on maintainability. XMPP is a complex protocol and maintainability should be the main criteria for design decision to be able to be sustainable in the long term. For the same reason, we also aim at limiting the dependencies as much as possible.
  • Focus on efficiency and scalability, leveraging only part of the XMPP protocol that are scalable. Many XEPs are too consuming to be used on large scale on production.

As a result, on iOS, we target iOS version 12+. On MacOS, we focus on Mojave (10.14), but it should work down to version 10.12, using SwiftNIO. On Linux, we use BSD Socket with SwiftNIO, so it should work quite broadly, as long as you have Swift 4.2 installed.

Note: This library is under very active development and not yet ready for production.

Building Fluux XMPP library

We design the build system with the following principles:

  • The goal is to be multiplatform (iOS, MacOS, Linux), while making use of newest iOS and MacOS features.
  • We want to be flexible and easy to integrate with all major dependency management tools (SwiftPM, CocoaPods, Carthage).

As such, we build the platform differently based on the target / build system:

  • With Carthage and Cocoapods, we use Apple Network.framework and thus target iOS 12+ and MacOS 10.14+. It means that for standard iOS ou MacOS build, there is no other dependencies.
  • With SwiftPM, we use Swift-NIO to be compliant with both Linux and older MacOS version (10.12+).

This decision allows us to keep all build system very simple, while having a good platform reach.

Using Fluux XMPP with Carthage

  1. Create your project as usual in XCode.
  2. Save your project as a workspace, so that you can build your dependencies as submodules. Close the project.
  3. Install Carthage, if you do not already have the tool installed
  4. Create a Cartfile (or update your existing one) to include Fluux XMPP as a dependency: 
    github "FluuxIO/XMPP.git" ~> 0.0
  5. Download and build the Fluux XMPP dependency: 
    carthage update --platform iOS --use-submodules --no-use-binaries
    We’re using --use-submodules so that our dependencies are added as submodules. This allows users to build the resulting application without Carthage if they want. We use --no-use-binaries so that dependencies are built locally on our system.
  6. Open your application workspace and add your dependency projects into your workspace. You can do so by dragging the bundle Carthage/Checkouts/XMPP/XMPP.xcodeproj to your workspace.
  7. In the General tab of your target, add Fluux XMPP as an embedded binary. Click + and select XMPP.framework for iOS.
  8. You should now be able to use the framework from your app. Here is an example of minimal code you can add to your app to to an XMPP client: Fluux XMPP client example for Fluux XMPP v0.0.1

Using Fluux XMPP with Cocoapods

Fluux XMPP library is published on Cocoapods.

You can thus use it as follows:

  1. Close your project

  2. Create (or update) your Podfile to include pod 'XMPP'. For example:

    platform :ios, '12.0'

target 'XMPPPodTest' do
  pod 'XMPP'
end

post_install do |installer| 
  installer.pods_project.build_configurations.each do |config|
    if config.name == 'Release'
      config.build_settings['SWIFT_COMPILATION_MODE'] = 'wholemodule'
    end    
  end
end

  3. Install the dependencies:

    pod install

  4. Open the workspace. You can now start using Fluux XMPP. Here is an example of minimal code you can add to your app to to an XMPP client: Fluux XMPP client example for Fluux XMPP v0.0.1.

Using Swift Package

Install homebrew dependencies

You need a libxml2 and a TLS implementation (i.e. libressl). You can install them with HomeBrew:

brew install libxml2
brew install libressl

Adding Fluux XMPP as a dependency in your project

You can build the lib using Swift Package Manager, thanks to the provided Package.swift file.

You also need to properly set your build target to MacOS 10.12 explicitely, as, at the moment, Swift PM uses MacOS 10.10 as an hardcoded value for the deployment target (more on this here).

To integrate Fluux XMPP in your Swift PM project, you can add it as a dependency of your project in your Package.swift file. For example:

// swift-tools-version:4.2

import PackageDescription

let package = Package(
    name: "XMPPDemo",
    dependencies: [
        // Dependencies declare other packages that this package depends on.
        .package(url: "https://github.com/FluuxIO/XMPP.git", from: "0.0.2"),
    ],
    targets: [
        .target(
            name: "XMPPDemo",
            dependencies: ["XMPP"]),
        .testTarget(
            name: "XMPPDemoTests",
            dependencies: ["XMPPDemo"]),
    ]
)

You can modify your command line executable to start a XMPP client. For example:

import Foundation
import XMPP


guard let jid = JID("mremond@localhost/XMPPDemo") else { print("Invalid JID"); exit(1) }
var xmppConfig = Config(jid: jid, password: "mypass", useTLS: true)
xmppConfig.allowInsecure = true
xmppConfig.host = "MacBook-Pro-de-Mickael.local"
xmppConfig.streamObserver = DefaultStreamObserver()

let client = XMPP(config: xmppConfig)

let semaphore = DispatchSemaphore(value: 0)
client.connect {
  print("Disconnected !")
  semaphore.signal() 
}

_ = semaphore.wait(timeout: DispatchTime.distantFuture)

Here is a typical build command you can pass to your project, to force the minimal build target to MacOS Mojave:

swift build -Xswiftc "-target" -Xswiftc "x86_64-apple-macosx10.14"

You can then run your console client:

.build/debug/XMPPDemo

The plan is to use Swift-NIO instead on Network.framework on platforms where that new framework is not available, i.e. Linux and older MacOS version. Swift-NIO is not available on iOS.

The tests can be run with the command:

swift test -Xswiftc "-target" -Xswiftc "x86_64-apple-macosx10.14"

Working on Linux with Docker

You can use Docker official image to work on the Swift projet on Linux:

docker run  -itv $(pwd):/code --name swiftcode -w /code swift /bin/bash

You will then need to install libxml2-dev package in the container with:

apt-get update
apt-get install libxml2-dev

TLS support

At the moment the library only support standard TLS connection, not STARTTLS. Apple Networking library does not support (yet ?) switching encryption after the connection has been established, because they are worried by possible security issues around STARTTLS implementations.

That said, XMPP support TLS on port 5223. It is called "legacy" SSL because use of port 5223 has been deprecated by the XMPP Standards Foundation a while back. That said, modern XMPP servers like ejabberd support state of the art TLS on port 5223. To use TLS at the moment, it is perfectly fine to use TLS on port 5223.