architecture to Facebook-chat from a webpage, (XMPP? Strophe? Punjab?)

Question

I would like to implement FB-chat inside a webpage. I looked around in Facebook API, i found out that chat is allowed only using XMPP. First I tried to connect to FB-chat using Pidgin and it worked fine. My conclusion was that FB-chat server is acting as the XMPP server. Is this true?

I read about XMPP, it seems that an open TCP connection should be established between the client and the server to exchange the XML stanzas which is not possible from a website (over JavaScript and without plugins) since only http requests/responses can be exchanges, no TCP connection there. This means that there should be some kind of a proxy in between, and as for authentication, FB API suggests to use the X-FACEBOOK-PLATFORM SASL (not the DIGEST MD5, since there is a proxy). I didn't find a clear tutorial or steps how to do so, help here is appreciated.

A bit more research about XMPP client from the web or browser, I saw that I am supposed to use a library called Strophe (based on BOSH protocol) and in other answers some kind of connection manager called Punjab. I read about this BOSH protocol, it seems to be the solution but in some places I found out that it is not allowed in FB (I am not sure how correct is this info though). I tried to setup these but i was totally confused how to begin and what I am really supposed to do.

For the strophe, I didn't find a real tutorial how to implement it, and in what i found, they suggest to first setup a jabber server like ejabberd (I didnt get the need for that).

My question is:

Can somebody suggest an architecture that I should implement to achieve my goal?

So will there be: webpage ->(HTTP) -> Strophe -> (TCP) -> FB-chat OR will it have an XMPP server in between and why?

I would appreciate any answer to any of my questions. Please suggest some links to how to implement all these stuff. I am totally new to all this which made me lost for more than a week now.

If somebody already did this, please help. Thanks a lot.

Sabah

Answer 1

I'm trying to solve this problem too. So far I have decided on a set up of:

Jappix mini (uses JSJAC.js library) <-> node-xmpp-bosh on node.js on my server <-> Facebook server.

Jappix mini was hard to find but it seems by far the best open source chat bar so worth mentioning here.

I don't have it all set up yet but will update here if I make progress. The main issue will be how to make JSJAC use Facebook API Key authentication. I can't find any info or examples for that, but I found this plugin for strophe library which maybe can be adapted:

https://github.com/rubenjgarciab/turedsocial/blob/master/strophe-plugins/src/facebook.js

Finally, you cannot include your facebook secret key in javascript (because it's a secret!) so you need to use Facebook REST API auth.promoteSession server-side to produce a session-secret key which can be used in the javascript to sign the X-FACEBOOK-PLATFORM auth request.

Hope that helps, I'll add more if/when I get it working.

Answer 2

Informations about facebook chat server :

Protocol: XMPP or Jabber
Username: mathvdh
Domain: chat.facebook.com
Jabber ID: mathvdh@chat.facebook.com
Password: <your Facebook password>
Port: 5222
Server: chat.facebook.com
Use SSL/TLS: no
Allow plaintext authentication: no

I think strophe and punjab should be a working combination for fb chat, see here : XMPP library for facebook chat

And I think the schema would be more like :

client webpage/js/strophe <-> yourserver/punjab <-> facebook xmpp chat server

Answer 3

Sabah,

As mentioned in the previous answers the Punjab <-> strophe.js works. I have forked the facebook strophe client here: https://github.com/javierfigueroa/turedsocial and I added an example.

Hope this helps.