Despite the way it sounds, managing users isn’t an all-involving activity—at least it shouldn’t be. Most system administrators tend to follow the “install-it-forget-it” methodology to running their servers. You can do so with Openfire as well, but with a user-centeric service such as an IM server, keeping track of things isn’t a bad idea. Openfire makes your job easier with its web-based admin interface.
There are several things that you can setup via the web interface that’ll help you manage the users. You can install some plugins that’ll help you run and manage the server more effectively, such as the plugin for importing/exporting users, and dual-benefit plugins such as the search plugin, which help users find other users in the network, and also let you check up on users using the IM service.
In this article, we will cover:
Irrespective of whether you have pre-populated user rosters, letting users find other users on the network is always a good idea. The Search Plugin works both ways—it helps your users find each other, and also helps you, the administrator, to find users and modify their settings if required.
To install the plugin, head over to the Plugins tab (refer to the following screenshot). The Search plugin is automatically installed along with Openfire, and will be listed as a plugin that is already installed. It’s still a good idea to restart the plugin just to make sure that everything’s ok. Locate and click the icon in the Restart column that corresponds to the Search plugin. This should restart the plugin.
To tweak the Search plugin options, head over to the Server | Server Settings |Search Service Properties in the Openfire admin interface. From this page, you can enable or disable the service. Once enabled, users will be able to search for other users on the network from their clients. Not all clients have the Search feature but Spark, Exodus, Psi, and some others do.
Even if you disable this plugin, you, the admin, will still be able to search for users from the Openfire admin interface as described in the following section.
In addition to enabling the Search option, you’ll have to name it. The plugin is offered as a network “service” to the users. The Openfire server offers other services and also includes the group chat feature which we will discuss in the Appendix. Calling the search service by its default name, search.< your-domain-name > is a goodidea. You should only change it if you have another service on your network with the same name.
To use the plugin, your users will have to use their clients to query the Openfire server and then select the search service from the ones listed. This will present them with a search interface through which they’ll be able to search for their peers(refer to the following screenshot) using one or more of the three options (Username,Name, Email), depending on what you have enabled.
So we’ve let our users look for their peers, but how do you, the Openfire admin, look for users? You too can use your client, but it’s better to do it from the interface since you can tweak the user’s settings from there as well. To search for users from within the admin interface, head over to the Users/Groups tab. You’ll notice an AdvancedUser Search option in the sidebar.
The search box is case-sensitive.
So why were you looking for “James Allan”, the guy with two first names? It was because his last name is in fact “Allen” and he wants to get it corrected. So you find his record with the plugin and click on his username. This brings up a summary of his properties including his status, the groups he belongs to, when he was registeredon the network, and so on. Find and click the Edit Properties button below the details, make the required changes, and click the Save Properties > button.
Instant Messaging is an alternate line of enterprise communication, along with electronic ones such as email and traditional ones such as the telephone. Some critical tasks require instant notification and nothing beats IM when it comes to time-critical alerts.
For example, most critical server software applications, especially the ones facing outwards on to the Internet, are configured to send an email to the admin in case of an emergency—for example, a break-in attempt, abnormal shutdown, hardware failure, and so on. You can configure Openfire to route these messages to you as an IM, if you’re online. If you’re a startup that only advertises a single info@coolstartup.com email address which is read by all seven employees of the company, you can configure Openfire to send IMs to all of you when the VCs come calling!
Setting this up isn’t an issue if you have the necessary settings handy. The email alert service connects to the email server using IMAP and requires the following options:
But first head over to the Plugins tab and install the Email Listener plugin from the list of available plugins. Once you have done this, head back to the Server tab and choose the Email Listener option in the sidebar and enter the settings in the form that pops up (refer to the following screenshot). Click the Test Settings button to allow Openfire to try to connect to the server using the settings provided. If the test is successful, finish off the setup procedure by clicking the Save button to save your settings. If the test fails, check the settings and make sure that the email server is up and running. You can test and hook them with your Gmail account as well.
Since Openfire is a communication tool, it reserves the coolest tricks in the bag for that purpose. The primary purpose of Openfire remains one-to-one personal interactions and many-to-many group discussion, but it can also be used as a one-to-many broadcasting tool.
This might sound familiar to you. But don’t sweat, I’m not repeating myself. The one-to-many broadcasting we cover in this section is different from the Send Message tool. The Send Message tool from the web-based Openfire administration console is available only to the Openfire administrator. But the plugin we cover in this section has a much broader perspective.
For one, the Broadcast plugin can be used by non-admin users, though of course, you can limit access. Secondly, the Broadcast plugin can be used to send messages to a select group of users which can grow to include everyone in the organization using Openfire.
One use of the broadcast plugin is for sending important reminders. Here are some examples:
To reap the benefits of the Broadcast plugin, begin by installing it from under theAvailable Plugins list on the Plugins tab. This plugin has a few configuration options which should be set carefully—using a misconfigured broadcast plugin, the new guy in the purchase department could send a message of “Have you seen my stapler?” to everyone in the organization, including the CEO!
The broadcast plugin is configured via the Openfire system properties. Remember these? They are listed under the Server tab’s System Properties option in the sidebar. You’ll have to manually specify the settings using properties (refer to the following screenshot):
Once you have configured the plugin, you’ll have to instruct users on how to use the plugin according to the configuration. To send a message using the broadcast plugin, users must add a user with the JID in the following format @. (refer to the following screenshot).
There’s no dearth of IM clients. It’s said that if you have ten users on your network, you’ll have at least fifteen different clients. Managing user’s clients is like bringing order to chaos. In this regard you’ll find that Openfire is biased towards its own IMclient, Spark. But as it has all the features you’d expect from an IM client and runs on multiple platforms as well, one really can’t complain.
So what can you control using the client control features? Here’s a snapshot:
Don’t these features sound as if they can take some of the work off your shoulders? Sure, but you’ll only truly realize how cool and useful they are when you implement them! So what are you waiting for? Head over to the Plugins tab and install the Client Control plugin. When it is installed, head over to the Server | ClientManagement tab. Here you’ll notice several options.
The first option under client management, Client Features, lets you enable or disable certain client features (refer to the following screenshot). These are:
By default, all of these features are enabled. When you’ve made changes as per your requirements, remember to save the settings using the Save Settings button.
The manually-added clients are automatically added to the list of allowed clients. If you don’t trust them, why add them? The remove link next to these clients will remove them from the list of clients you trust.
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