[tor-project] ANNOUNCEMENT: XMPP/Jabber services on torproject.org shutdown in 30 days

[Antoine Beaupré]

Hi!

What?
=====

The Tor Project's jabber server will be shutdown in thirty days.

Why?
====

In a recent review of provided services, the sysadmin team has decided
to retire the XMPP/Jabber services offered by the Torproject.org
domain. The service was used by only four persons in the last month, out
of over thirty registered users and over a hundred users which could use
the service. The service is also maintained only by a single person, who
agrees on retiring the service.

This is not a statement on the merits of the XMPP protocol, the Jabber
project, or federation as a whole. Those principles are dear to our
hearts, we just feel it's better to direct our energies on services that
are used by a larger community.

When?
=====

In thirty days, the server will be shutdown and unreachable. The machine
itself will be kept up for an extra 7 days in case of a serious problem
and then decomissioned using our [normal process][].

 [normal process]: https://help.torproject.org/tsa/howto/retire-a-host/

How?
====

If you still wish to use another XMPP, you can follow the [Getting
started][] instructions on the xmpp.net website. It links to two sites
with lists of alternative servers that you could easily switch to.

One which we particularly recommend you consider is ran by the good
birds at [Riseup.net][], a donation based service ran "for people and
groups working on liberatory social change". If you already have an
account there, you can already use their XMPP server, see their [chat
documentation][] for more information. Riseup is an invite-only service:
if you know a friend on Riseup, they can send you an invite, but please
do not go around bugging them for invites, they don't give invites to
people they don't know.

 [Getting started]: https://xmpp.org/getting-started/
 [Riseup.net]: https://riseup.net/
 [chat documentation]: https://riseup.net/en/chat

Migrating to a different XMPP server can be done by downloading your
roster on one host and uploading it on the other. Then you need to ask
all your contacts to readd you to *their* roster, on the new
server. It's a lossy process because people might have you on their
roster without you having them on yours, but it might mean you get rid
of spammers, on the upside.

Here are instructions on how to migrate your roster from various
clients.

Gajim
-----

 1. register with the new server and configure it in Gajim -> Accounts
    (control-shift-a) -> Add account
 2. click on the new account
 3. choose "Import contacts"
 4. select the old account

Gajim will then transfer the roster between the two accounts. This was
tested in Gajim 1.1.2

Pidgin
------

As far as we could tell, there's no easy way to transfer rosters between
accounts in Pidgin.

Tkabber
-------

 1. log into the old account (Tkabber -> Log in...)
 2. export the roster (Tkabber -> Roster -> Export roster...)
 3. log out (Tkabber -> Log out...)
 4. log into the new account (Tkabber -> Log in...)
 5. import the roster (Tkabber -> Roster -> Import roster...)

Tkabber will then create the contacts in the roster of the new
account. Tested with Tkabber 1.1.2.

Jabber Migrate
--------------

Finally, there's a tool that's designed specifically for migrating
roster between servers, simply called "migrate". It used to be
maintained on [Sourceforge][], but it seems to be abandoned there. Two
forks have shown up on GitHub, from [jirutka][] and [spiculator][].

Note of those tools have been tested or reviewed by Torproject.org
people. Use at your own risk.

 [Sourceforge]: http://migrate.sourceforge.net/
 [jirutka]: https://github.com/jirutka/jabber-migrate
 [spiculator]: https://github.com/spiculator/jabber-migrate

Who?
====

This effort has been accepted by the current service admin (dgoulet) and
is led by the current sysadmin team lead (anarcat). Either person can be
reached for comments or just by replying to this email.

-- 
Antoine Beaupré
torproject.org system administration
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