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Title: Send XMPP messages from the command line |
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Author: Solène |
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Date: 25 May 2023 |
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Tags: xmpp monitoring selfhosting reed-alert |
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Description: In this blog post, you will learn how to use the program |
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go-sendxmpp to programmatically send XMPP messages from a script |
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# Introduction |
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As a reed-alert user for monitoring my servers, while using emails |
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works efficiently, I wanted to have more instant notifications for |
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critical issues. I'm also an happy XMPP user, so I looked for a |
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solution to send XMPP messages from a command line. |
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More about reed-alert on the blog |
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Reed-alert project git repository |
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I will explain how to use the program go-sendxmpp to send messages from |
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a command line, this is a newer drop-in replacement for the old perl |
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sendxmpp that doesn't seem to work anymore. |
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go-sendxmpp project git repository |
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# Installation |
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Following go-sendxmpp documentation, you need go to be installed, and |
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then run `go install salsa.debian.org/mdosch/go-sendxmpp@latest` to |
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compile the binary in `~/go/bin/go-sendxmpp`. Because it's a static |
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binary, you can move it to a directory in `$PATH`. |
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If I'm satisfied of it, I'll import go-sendxmpp into the OpenBSD ports |
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tree to make it available as a package for everyone. |
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# Configuration |
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Open a shell with the user that is going to run go-sendxmpp, prepare |
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the configuration file in its default location: |
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```shell |
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mkdir -p ~/.config/go-sendxmpp |
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touch ~/.config/go-sendxmpp/config |
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chmod 400 ~/.config/go-sendxmpp/config |
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``` |
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Edit the file `~/.config/go-sendxmpp/config` to add the two lines: |
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``` |
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username: myuser@myserver |
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password: hunter2_oryourpassword |
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``` |
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Now, your user should be ready to use `go-sendxmpp`, I recommend always |
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enabling the flag `-t` to use TLS to connect to the server, but you |
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should really choose an XMPP server providing TLS-only. |
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The program usage is simple: `echo "this is a message for you" | |
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go-sendxmpp dest@remote`, and you are done. It's easy to integrate it |
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in shell tasks. |
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Note that go-sendxmpp allows you to get the password for a command |
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instead of storing it in plain text, this may be more convenient and |
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secure in some scenarios. |
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# Reed-alert configuration |
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Back to reed-alert, using go-sendxmpp is as easy as declaring a new |
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alert type, especially using the email template: |
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```common-lisp |
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(alert xmpp "echo -n '[%state%] Problem with %function% %date% %params%' | go-s… |
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;; example of use |
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(=> xmpp ping :host "dataswamp.org" :desc "Ping to dataswamp.org") |
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``` |
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# Conclusion |
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XMPP is a very reliable communication protocol, I'm happy that I found |
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go-sendxmpp, a modern, working and simple way to programmatically send |
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me alerts using XMPP. |
