{"id":308,"date":"2011-12-10T20:31:21","date_gmt":"2011-12-10T19:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dont-panic.cc\/capi\/?p=308"},"modified":"2011-12-10T20:31:21","modified_gmt":"2011-12-10T19:31:21","slug":"a-geeks-unified-instant-messaging-setup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dont-panic.cc\/capi\/2011\/12\/10\/a-geeks-unified-instant-messaging-setup\/","title":{"rendered":"A geek’s unified instant messaging setup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I want to present to you my unified instant messaging setup<\/strong>, which enables me to communicate from any of my computers and also any of my mobile devices (Android<\/a>, iPhone<\/a>, iPad<\/a>). Goal for me was to provide a setup where I have single client per platform with a centralized history I can search if I need to. I want one – and only one – client for my communication. I only care about text instant messages, actually; I hardly ever use voice or video services when communicating online. I really like the asynchronous nature of instant messages. At the moment, I have integrated IRC<\/strong>, ICQ<\/strong>, Google-Talk<\/strong>\/Jabber<\/strong>\/XMPP<\/strong> (which could potentially also include Facebook<\/strong>), and Skype<\/strong>. The current setup also gives me push notifications to my iOS devices on messages directed at me. Today’s posting is only intended to give you a very high level overview. I will add detailed descriptions of individual setups of the individual components in later posts.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

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Core of my setup is IRC<\/a>. All my instant communication is mapped via IRC. Pretty old, but really well-working technology. Main reason here is that many of my friends and\u00a0colleagues\u00a0also communicate via IRC. I use irssi<\/a><\/strong>, which is a console client that can run within a screen<\/a> session so it continues to run even when I am not in front of a terminal. The screen_away plugin<\/a> takes care of setting the away status when screen is detached.<\/p>\n

To connect my non-IRC services, I use BitlBee<\/a><\/strong>, which is an IRC proxy to connect to non-IRC protocols. BitlBee supports all my external protocols (ICQ<\/a> & XMPP<\/a>, that is). It also supports Skype via the\u00a0fabulous\u00a0bitlbee-skype<\/a><\/strong> plugin by\u00a0Miklos Vajna. It requires a running Skype instance within a VNC server, though, but this is fine for me.<\/p>\n

irssi is considered core of the setup, as it also provides the the irssi_proxy<\/a> module, which enables other<\/em>\u00a0IRC clients to connect to this irssi instance, and when writing via this connection this is treated as if it has been entered directly into the irssi terminal. This mode is essential for my “centralized history \/ log file” requirement.<\/p>\n

As connecting to the irssi_proxy module will only provide you with messages sent to you after you have connected, another layer is added: ZNC<\/a><\/strong>. I launch this IRC bouncer<\/a> at the same machine as my irssi screen session. It connects to the irssi_proxy module and provides me with history if one of my external IRC clients connects, i.e. I am sent the history since the last time I connected to the ZNC.<\/p>\n

My mobile devices connect to the ZNC bouncer via SSL whenever I decide to launch one of the clients. Due to my settings, I only get new messages. ZNC can be configured to send you the last n messages though, regardless where you last picked off, if you prefer that. But for me, it is primarily the “new” stuff that matters in communication (but this is of course personal taste).<\/p>\n

On my iOS devices (iPhone, iPad) I use the Colloquy Mobile<\/a><\/strong> client. This is a clone of the GPL-ed Colloquy<\/a> IRC client for OSX. In the App Store, it costs a few bucks, but I payed happily as this helps them in the development. There is a very nice plugin for ZNC, colloquypush<\/a><\/strong>, that enables push messages to Colloquy via Colloquy’s and Apple’s push servers. I have added a few patches to this open-source module, dealing with privacy (you can configure it to skip content of the messages when pushing) for sensitive communication channels (e.g. my work channel). Also I added an option that push messages are only sent while in away mode. This is where screen_away gets handy, as I only receive push messages when I am not attached to the screen session (or deliberately set myself to “away” mode in irssi). You can get colloquypush from the “official” maintainer’s github repository<\/a> or mine<\/a> (my “wip” branch is a few commits behind, as I am working on the Android improvements at the moment, see below).<\/p>\n

On Android I use AndChat<\/a><\/strong>, which is a free (as in beer) client, but not open-source. Unfortunately there is no push functionality available at the moment, but I am working on an extension of the ZNC colloquypush module to work with a notification app I am currently developing (no estimated time of arrival, if ever).<\/p>\n

For me, the setup provides the following benefits:<\/p>\n