Service upgrade July 2nd/3rd

[Update 2016-07-02 17:40] Server is live but experiencing some small problems due to the load which I’m currently trying to resolve. There may be interruptions as the server is restarted to apply settings.

[Update 2016-07-02 16:30] Server is undergoing final testing at the moment.

[Update 2016-07-02 14:10] The upgrade work has begun. More info to follow.

The Jabber.org.uk service will be offline Saturday 2nd July from about 2pm. This is to migrate the service to new server software. I’m not completely sure how long this will take but I believe it will take at least two hours to migrate. It is possible that this may over run so it’s possible that over the weekend there may be interruptions.

The primary reason is to upgrade to a more up to date server. This will allow increased security in particular to enforce better encryption between client-to-server (c2s) and server-to-server (s2s) connections. It should also help restrict attacks and bandwidth hogs. It will also allow better connections from mobile devices where the connection may be interrupted and charges apply for data used. It should also allow for more reliable and synchronised conversations across multiple clients.

I’ve done my best to test this out ahead of time but it is likely problems will exist with the migration.

Important changes

Immediate changes

  • Some clients will not work with the updated system. Clients which do not support a recent SSL protocol and cipher. Most good clients should be unaffected.
  • Some servers will not work. As before they will need to support recent SSL settings.
  • Conference rooms creation will be limited to users of jabber.org.uk and will be removed automatically after a period of non use.
  • There will be a new registration, password reset & account settings. This will not be available until work is all completed on the server.

Planned changes

More info will follow closer to the time that these changes are made.

  • All gateway transports should be considered ‘depreciated’. MSN Messenger has already gone, Yahoo Instant Messenger looks like will be gone soone. AIM and ICQ continue to exist. I will attempt to support these with my best effort.
  • People using ports 80 and 443 for connections to bypass firewalls will need to reconfigure their clients to switch from “legacy SSL” to TLS in the future.
  • The port 5223 (“legacy SSL”) will be turned off. People should move to using the standard 5222 port with TLS if they have not already done so.