Guide

The dependency for Tigase Utils Package has changed. This is important for everybody who builds the Tigase server manually from sources using Ant tool. The Maven handles all the dependencies automatically and scripts have been updated.

Please keep reading for more details how to compile the server from sources in current SVN repositories.

Most projects try to make sure that the SVN trunk code always compiles correctly. In the Tigase server case this is not enough however. Lots of installations out there we know of run just straight from out SVN trunk line. This puts on us an extra responsibility. Therefore our general approach is to run all functional tests before each code commit to ensure it works correctly. Of course this does not guarantee it will work correctly and efficiently in all cases and on all systems.

Some people like to be on the bleeding edge and always use the source code repository trunk some others prefer to stick to stable public releases. There is however a lot of other who would like to be able to use something from the middle - have the most recent features and new bug fixes but at least in "Beta" or "Release-Candidate" state.

If you look at the Monitor on the right hand side of the Tigase website you can see that the currently running version is always higher then the version available for download. If you are interested to update your server to the more recent version without much hassle please continue to read.

Installing Tigase from the public binary packages is pretty straightforward especially if you use the installer. Using SVN trunk sources to compile them for your own installation is not simple thing, however people who decide to do so normally don't need much help or instructions. This document describes how to update your system using so called Betas or RC versions we release from time to time.

A while ago, I have written an article about Linux settings for high load systems. This is a description for just very basic settings which are essential to successfully run XMPP service for hundred of thousands online users.

Of course, high load and high traffic systems require much more tuning and adjustments. If you use selinux you have to be careful as it can interfere with the service while it is under a high load. Also some firewall settings may case problems as the system may decide it is under a DOS attack and can start blocking incoming connections or throttle the traffic.

In any case, there are some basic checks to do every time you deploy XMPP service to make sure it will function properly. I am trying to keep the article mentioned above up to date and add all the settings and parameters I discover while working with different installations. If you have some suggestions for different values or different parameters to add, please let me know.

The article, while helpful, seems to be not enough though.

It has happened recently that we have tried very hard to fix a few annoying problems on one of the Tigase installations. Whatever we did, however the problems still existed after uploading a new version and the server restart. It worked fine in our development environment and it just didn't on the target system.

It turned out that due to a specific environment settings on the target system an old version of the Tigase server was always started regardless updates we were uploading. When I finally started looking at the installation the first indication that something is wrong was lack of any log files in place where I expected them.