[sugar] How do I connect to a Jabber server ?

[Morgan Collett]

Hi Mikus

On Sun, Aug 3, 2008 at 04:10, Mikus Grinbergs <mikus at bga.com> wrote:
> Eben wrote:
>> There has been lots of confusion about the difference between mesh and APs.
>>  They're really not the same at all, apart from the fact that they both
>> depend on the radio.  The new design no longer treats the mesh channels as
>> objects in the Neighborhood view.  Instead, there will be (is? not sure if
>> the patch landed yet) a mesh device in the Frame, which you can turn on (and
>> off?) at whim.
>
> I am anxiously waiting to *use* some of these improvements.
>
> --------
>
> For the last several months, I've __NOT__ been able to connect to a
> Jabber server.  When I look at the running tasks, it's always salut.
> The XO is supposed to retry reaching the Jabber server every 320
> seconds -- but mine (using Joyride) has not had recent success.
>
> Last spring, this all worked for me the way it was supposed to work.
> But since then, new OLPC software versions have been released -- and
> in my experience my OLPC is no longer connecting to a Jabber server.

Please file a bug the next time you can reproduce this. Please include
presenceservice.log and telepathy-gabble.log with debug logs enabled
in .xsession. (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Telepathy-debug)

If there is a regression, it's a bug.

Please don't hesitate to log bugs. In the worst case we never find a
reproducible problem. In the second worst case, we close it as a
duplicate of another existing bug. No, I change my mind: in the worst
case there is a regression, and we never get a trackable record of it
or logs. Please log bugs at the slightest hint of a problem that
happens more than once, and include all possible logs you can.

> [I don't have wireless at home, so I have to wait until I go to some
> sort of establishment that provides an AP.  But even when I am able
> to surf the net from my XO, I'm not connecting to any Jabber server.
> I've tried many - *surely* at least one should be working.]

One quick way to see if a jabber server is up: (you will need to
install nc first, with sudo yum install nc)

$ nc xochat.org 5222

Type anything and press Enter, you should see some XML returned if the
server is up, e.g. <?xml version='1.0'?><stream:stream
xmlns='jabber:client' xmlns:stream=...

If you get connection refused, the server's definitely down. If it
just hangs and doesn't show the XML stuff, it's overloaded and
non-responsive - consider it down.

> --------
>
> For people in my situation, what I want is to be able to 'turn off'
> the XO trying to reach the 'school server' via the mesh (I'm a G1G1
> user, and will *never* have a 'school server' where I live).
> Instead, I want my XO to try HARDER, via the AP to which it is
> connected, to reach whatever (Jabber) server I've specified.
>
> mikus
>
>
>
>
> p.s.  These may be written down somewhere - but I've not been able
> to find explanations for "how to move a connection" :
>
> (A)  Suppose a kid is communicating with his 'school server' via the
> mesh.  Then he walks so far away that his radio no longer reaches
> the school.  If he happens to be within range of an alternate AP,
> how would the transfer from 'using mesh addressing for the school'
> to 'using internet addressing for the school' be handled?  [Does the
> kid ever have to do something manually, such as re-starting Sugar ?]

You have to explicitly connect to the AP by clicking on it, since the
mesh could "heal" at any time by you walking back or someone else
appearing within range.

The schoolserver would only be accessible via the AP if it has a
public DNS entry and accepts connections from the outside. Connections
over the mesh to the schoolserver typically have an RFC1918 private IP
address.

> (B) Suppose a kid is using the Jabber facilities at his school to
> contact an "overseas" buddy.  Suddenly the communications link
> between the school and the internet fails.  If the kid happens to be
> within range of an alternate AP, does he have to do something
> manually (such as entering the name of a non-school Jabber server)
> to re-establish Jabber contact to the outside world ?

At this stage, the overseas buddy would have to be registered on this
kid's school jabber server, to collaborate, since we do not have
server to server federation. In that case, if this kid can't access
his school jabber server in any way, communication breaks down. See
above about connecting via AP.

Alternatively, this kid would have to register with an external jabber
server (thereby disconnecting from his own school jabber server) to
communicate with the remote buddy in the first place. Either way, no
changing jabber server names is required to *re-establish*
communication, but he would have to switch to the AP by clicking on
it.

Regards
Morgan