Tigase service and MSN transport from client side.

MSN transport is a separate module which allows you to connect to your MSN account and contact with other people from MSN network from your Jabber client. We use PyMSN-t application as a MSN transport which is a separate project from Tigase server. Both applications integrate very well and detailed configuration instruction is available in this guide.

At the moment MSN transport installed on tigase.org server is available for local users only.

You also need an account on Hotmail server and a Jabber/XMPP client of your choice:

• Psi
• Pidgin
• Coccinella
• Jeti - available also on Tigase Website.
• JWChat - available also on Tigase Website.

There are many other clients available...

Here are instructions how to use the MSN transport on tigase.org in different Jabber/XMPP clients.

First and the most important thing to note is you can not register an account on tigase.org server using your Jabber client. You have to create new account using Tigase Website. This is because Tigase Website running on Drupal shares account information with Jabber service and all account management is done via Website interface.

All Jabber/XMPP capable clients can use MSN transport as it needs very basic Jabber/XMPP protocol features. Unfortunately some clients, especially multi-protocols clients like Pidgin don't fully support protocol and can not initialize MSN transport properly. There is a workaround though. Again using what Tigase Website offers you can initialize MSN transport and then switch back to your favorite client.

Let's say we have already refistered test account on Tigase Website with password *** and we also have a MSN account: kobit12@hotmail.com with password: *********.

Jeti

Jeti is described as the first client because it might be needed for users of some other clients to initialize MSN transport for your account.

Due to a number of images used in the Jeti guide it has been moved onto separate page.

Pidgin

As I mentioned earlier Pidgin doesn't support all Jabber extensions needed for registering to MSN transport so unfortunately you have to use different client to add this transport to your roster. Ideally you should use one of native Jabber stand-alone clients like Psi or Coccinella. If you don't want, however to install any other clients you can use Jeti which is available on Tigase website preinstalled and preconfigured for use. Please refer to this guide for details how to use Jeti client to get MSN transport working.

Ok, now as you probably have MSN transport activated for you account you can start using Pidgin to communicate with either Jabber users or MSN users.

First thing to do is basic Pidgin configuration to connect to your Jabber account on tigase.org server. Click Accounts in your main menu and then Add/Edit to get window with your all accounts list. There is a button Add. After you press it you get window as on the right hand side of this text.

Please enter all your login details as on the example screenshot. Your user name Screen name and Password will be different but Domain should be the same: tigase.org. After you fill all fields you don't press Register. You have to press Save.

Ok. Assuming everything was enterred correctly and you have configured Pidgin to login automatically your main window should look like the one on the left hand side. Your buddy list might be empty if you didn't add anybody to your list yet or if you didn't registered to MSN transport yet.

If MSN transport is not activated yet, please disconnect Pidgin from tigase.org server and use different client as described above to do so.

On the other hand if you did everything already and you have an old MSN account with lots of contacts your buddy list may look completely different as all the contacts you have will be automatically pulled into your Jabber roster and should show on the list.

I have created completely new MSN account for the purpose of writing this guide and I don't have any MSN contacts yet. So my list is quite simple - single Jabber contact and MSN transport which shows as a normal contact too. You remember Pidgin can't distinguish between transports and regular accounts.

In such case one of the first things I should do is adding new MSN contact to be able to communicate with somebody and see whether he/she is on-line or not.

Adding new contact is simple as long as Pidgin thinks it is normal Jabber contact. So actually we can not simply put: user_name@hotmail.com in Add buddy window because this is Hotmail account which is not directly available. After @ character you have to put valid Jabber domain, not MSN.

If you look at the windows on the right hand side it should become clear now.

Whole MSN account address is a user name for Jabber identifier and you have to replace @ with %. Then you put @ and MSN transport address. As an Alias you can enter anything. I have put real Hotmail address to make it easier later to see what the account it is.

Enter everything carefuly and press Add.

After you press the Add button the contact you are just adding should receive subscription request as well as subscription request should be also received by yourself. The Pidgin window should look similar to the example on the left hand side.

Of course you press Authorize button on both sides (or your mate in MSN network accepts your subscription request) and now the final window should look like the one on the right hand side. New buddy is on your list and you can click on his/her name and start chatting.

One final funny discovery I made during writing this guide.

I have created new MSN account just for my tests and I have also used my old MSN account for subscribing and adding the account to buddy list on both sides. More over, I access both MSN accounts through MSN transport and in my tests I was communicating from one Jabber client (Psi) through MSN gateway to MSN server and back through my MSN gateway back to other Jabber client (Pidgin) to the other account.

Apparently MSN transport spotted this and knowing how silly is such use case send me one extra message to my chat window. Have a look at the last screenshot and have fun. Remember to not communicate between 2 Jabber accounts using your 2 MSN accounts as this might be discovered by the smart, open source software.