rabbitChat

A Chat-Server/Chat-System based on AMQP protocol(RabbitMQ Message Broker)

Home Page : https://pypi.python.org/pypi/rabbitChat

Details

Author:Anirban Roy Das
Email:anirban.nick@gmail.com
Copyright(C):2016, Anirban Roy Das <anirban.nick@gmail.com>

Check rabbitChat/LICENSE file for full Copyright notice.

Overview

rabbitChat is a very simple Chat Server which can be set up locally to chat in your LAN. It supports both Public Chat among all participants connected simultaneously at a particular time and also Private Chat betweent those individual participants.

It uses the AMQP protocol to implement the real time message passing system. AMQP is implemented in many languages and in many softwares, once of such is RabbitMQ , which is a message broker implementing the AMQP protocol.

The connection is created using the sockjs protocol. SockJS is implemented in many languages, primarily in Javascript to talk to the servers in real time, which tries to create a duplex bi-directional connection between the Client(browser) and the Server. Ther server should also implement the sockjs protocol. Thus using the sockjs-tornado library which exposes the sockjs protocol in Tornado server.

It first tries to create a Websocket connection, and if it fails then it fallbacks to other transport mechanisms, such as Ajax, long polling, etc. After the connection is established, the tornado server**(sockjs-tornado)** connects to rabbitMQ via AMQP protocol using the AMQP Python Client Library, Pika.

Thus the connection is web-browser to tornado to rabbitMQ and vice versa.

Technical Specs

sockjs-client:Advanced Websocket Javascript Client
Tornado:Async Python Web Library + Web Server
sockjs-tornado:SockJS websocket server implementation for Tornado
AMQP:Advance Message Queuing Protocol used in Message Oriented Middleware
pika:AMQP Python Client Library
RabbitMQ:A Message Broker implementing AMQP

Features

  • Public chat
  • Shows who joined and who left
  • Shows number of people online
  • Shows who is typing and who is not
  • Join/Leave chat room features

Installation

Prerequisites

  1. python 2.7+
  2. tornado
  3. sockjs-tornado
  4. sockjs-client
  5. pika
  6. rabbitMQ

Install

$ pip install rabbitChat

If above dependencies do not get installed by the above command, then use the below steps to install them one by one.

Step 1 - Install pip

Follow the below methods for installing pip. One of them may help you to install pip in your system.

Step 2 - Install tornado

$ pip install tornado

Step 3 - Install sockjs-tornado

$ pip install sockjs-tornado

Step 4 - Install pika

$ pip install pika

Step 5 - Install RabbitMQ

  • For Mac Users

    1. Brew Install RabbitMQ

    $ brew install rabbitmq
    1. Configure RabbitMq, follow this link, this one and this.

  • For Ubuntu/Linux Users

    1. Enable RabbitMQ application repository

    $ echo "deb http://www.rabbitmq.com/debian/ testing main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list

    2. Add the verification key for the package

    $ wget -o http://www.rabbitmq.com/rabbitmq-signing-key-public.asc | sudo apt-key add -

    3. Update the sources with our new addition from above

    $ apt-get update

    4. And finally, download and install RabbitMQ

    $ sudo apt-get install rabbitmq-server
    1. Configure RabbitMQ, follow this link, this one and this.

Usage

After having installed rabbitChat, just the run the following commands to use it:

  • RabbitMQ Server

    1. For Mac Users

    # start normally
$ rabbitmq-server

# If you want to run in background
$ rabbitmq-server --detached

# start using brew rervices (doesn't work with tmux)
$ brew services rabbitmq start

    2. For Ubuntu/LInux Users

    # start normally
$ rabbitmq-server

# If you want to run in background
$ rabbitmq-server --detached

# To start using service
$ service rabbitmq-server start

# To stop using service
$ service rabbitmq-server stop

# To restart using service
$ service rabbitmq-server restart

# To check the status
$ service rabbitmq-server status

  • Start rabbitChat Server

    $ rabbitChat [options]

    • Options

      –port:Port number where the chat server will start

    • Example

      $ rabbitChat --port=9191

  • Stop rabbitChat Server

    Click Ctrl+C to stop the server.

Todo

  1. Add Private Chat functionality.
  2. Manage Presence Management, sent, delivered acknowledgements.
  3. Message Persistence and delivery of messages to offline clinets.
  4. Add Blog post regarding this topic.