Openfire is a real time collaboration (RTC) server licensed under the Open Source Apache License. It uses the only widely adopted open protocol for instant messaging, XMPP (also called Jabber). Openfire is incredibly easy to setup and administer, but offers rock-solid security and performance.
Installation
Download the openfire package
openfire-3.9.3-1.i386.rpm “RPM for Red Hat Linux and variants May 6, 2014 67.25 MB”
openfire_3.9.3_all.deb “Debian package, no Java JRE May 6, 2014 14.32 MB”
JSopenfire-3.9.3-ALL.pkg.gz “Solaris package, no Java JRE May 6, 2014 10.09 MB”
Choose either the RPM or tar.gz build. If using the RPM, run it using your package manager to install Openfire to /opt/openfire:
Open a Terminal “CTRL+ALT+T” and type this command line:
Red Hat / CentOS
su
rpm -ivh openfire-3.9.3-1.i386.rpm
Debian / Ubuntu
sudo -i
dpkg -i openfire_3.9.3_all.deb
If using the .tar.gz, extract the archive to /opt or /usr/bin:
tar -xzvf openfire_3_0_0.tar.gz
mv openfire /opt
Note: the .tar.gz build does not contain a bundled Java runtime (JRE). Therefore, you must have JDK or JRE 1.5.0 (Java 5) or later installed on your system. You can check your java version by typing “java -version” at the command line and (if necessary) upgrade your Java installation by visiting http://java.sun.com.
To complete the installation of Openfire, you’ll need to perform each of the following steps:
Setup the Database
Openfire can store its data in an embedded database or you can choose to use an external database such as MySQL or Oracle. If you would like to use an external database, you must prepare it before proceeding with installation. View the database setup documentation for more information.
Setup the Server
A web-based, “wizard” driven setup and configuration tool is built into Openfire. Simply launch Openfire (platform-specific instructions below) and use a web browser to connect to the admin console. The default port for the web-based admin console is 9090. If you are on the same machine as Openfire, the following URL will usually work: http://127.0.0.1:9090. Initial setup and administration can also be done from a remote computer using LAN IP address instead or hostname if it is resolvable by the remote computer. Windows Server administrators should add http://127.0.0.1 address to Internet Explorer’s Trusted Sites list, if Enhanced Security configuration is enabled in Internet Explorer. Otherwise they will get a blank screen.
Admin Console
After completing the above steps, Openfire will be configured and you can use the web-based admin console to administer the server. The URL should be the same as you used to setup the server unless you changed the port during the setup.
Running Openfire in Linux/Unix
If you are running on a Red Hat or Red Hat like system (CentOS, Fedora, etc), we recommend using the RPM as it contains some custom handling of the standard Red Hat like environment. Assuming that you have used the RPM, you can start and stop Openfire using the /etc/init.d/openfire script.
Open a Terminal “CTRL+ALT+T” and type this command line:
$ /etc/init.d/openfire
Usage /etc/init.d/openfire {start|stop|restart|status|condrestart|reload}
Starting openfire:
If you are running on a different Linux/Unix varient, and/or you have used the .tar.gz ‘installer’, you can start and stop Openfire using the bin/openfire script in your Openfire installation:
$ ./openfire start
Usage ./openfire {start|stop}
Starting openfire
If you would like to install Openfire as a service, two scripts are provided in the bin/extra directory:
redhat-postinstall.sh — automatically installs Openfire as a service on Red Hat. It does so by creating a “jive” user and then copying the openfired script to your init.d directory. This script must be run as root. Please see the comments in the script for additional information.
openfired — script to run Openfire as a service. You must manually configure this script. See the comments in the script for additional details.
It is not recommended that you use either of these scripts if you installed via RPM. The RPM has already taken care of what these scripts take care of.
Custom Parameters
Advanced users may wish to pass in parameters to the Java virtual machine (VM) to customize the runtime environment of Openfire. If you installed via RPM, you can customize this by editing /etc/sysconfig/openfire and looking at the OPENFIRE_OPTS option. If you installed via .tar.gz, you will need to tweak your startup script to fit your needs.
Plugins
Plugins add additional features and protocol support to Openfire. After setting up your Openfire installation, you may want to download and install plugins to enhance your server. Plugins can be downloaded from the plugins page on igniterealtime.org or directly inside the administration console.
Installing Plugins
If you download a plugin from inside the Openfire administration console, it will automatically be installed. If you manually download the plugin (packaged as a .jar file), you can deploy it by copying the plugin file to the plugins/ directory of your Openfire installation. A plugin monitor will automatically extract the plugin into a directory and install the plugin in Openfire. You may also use the “upload plugin” feature in the admin console (under the Plugins tab) to load a plugin from your local file system to the server.
Managing Plugins
Plugins can be managed inside the Openfire admin console. You can also manually delete a plugin at any time by deleting its JAR file (Openfire will automatically remove the plugin from memory and delete it’s directory when you do so).
Openfire Screen-shots
How to and tutorials 