How to Install Prosody IM on OpenBSD

Prosody IM is a lightweight and easy-to-use Jabber/XMPP server that is fully featured and supports a wide variety of clients. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of installing Prosody IM on an OpenBSD operating system.

Step 1: Update the OpenBSD System

Before installing any new software, it's always a good idea to update the system, this can be done by running the following command:

# sysupgrade

Step 2: Install Prosody IM

The Prosody IM package is available in the OpenBSD ports system, so we can easily install it using the following commands:

# pkg_add prosody

Step 3: Configure Prosody

Prosody comes with a default configuration file, which can be found at /etc/prosody/prosody.cfg.lua. We'll use this file as a template and create our own configuration file:

# cp /etc/prosody/prosody.cfg.lua /etc/prosody/prosody.cfg.lua.original
# cp /etc/prosody/prosody.cfg.lua.example /etc/prosody/prosody.cfg.lua

Edit the new configuration file /etc/prosody/prosody.cfg.lua with your preferred text editor and modify the following sections:

Domain name

VirtualHost "example.com"

Change example.com to your own domain name.

SSL/TLS

ssl = {
    certificate = "/etc/ssl/cert.pem";
    key = "/etc/ssl/private/key.pem";
}

Make sure to replace /etc/ssl/cert.pem and /etc/ssl/private/key.pem with your SSL/TLS certificate and key paths.

Admin user

admins = { "[email protected]" }

Change [email protected] to your own admin username.

Step 4: Start Prosody

Once Prosody is installed and configured, we can start the server using the following command:

# rcctl start prosody

Step 5: Registering First User

In order to register the first user, use the following command:

# prosodyctl register <user> <domain> <password>

Make sure to replace <user>, <domain>, and <password> with your preferred username, domain name, and password.

Summary

In this tutorial, we have seen how to install Prosody IM on an OpenBSD operating system. We also configured Prosody with SSL/TLS, domain name, and admin username. Finally, we started the server and registered the first user. Prosody is now ready for use.