Creating a Slixmpp Plugin¶
One of the goals of Slixmpp is to provide support for every draft or final XMPP extension (XEP). To do this, Slixmpp has a plugin mechanism for adding the functionalities required by each XEP. But even though plugins were made to quickly implement and prototype the official XMPP extensions, there is no reason you can’t create your own plugin to implement your own custom XMPP-based protocol.
This guide will help walk you through the steps to implement a rudimentary version of XEP-0077 In-band Registration. In-band registration was implemented in example 14-6 (page 223) of XMPP: The Definitive Guide because there was no Slixmpp plugin for XEP-0077 at the time of writing. We will partially fix that issue here by turning the example implementation from XMPP: The Definitive Guide into a plugin. Again, note that this will not a complete implementation, and a different, more robust, official plugin for XEP-0077 may be added to Slixmpp in the future.
Note
The example plugin created in this guide is for the server side of the registration process only. It will NOT be able to register new accounts on an XMPP server.
First Steps¶
Every plugin inherits from the class BasePlugin <slixmpp.plugins.base.BasePlugin
,
and must include a plugin_init
method. While the
plugins distributed with Slixmpp must be placed in the plugins directory
slixmpp/plugins
to be loaded, custom plugins may be loaded from any
module. To do so, use the following form when registering the plugin:
self.register_plugin('myplugin', module=mod_containing_my_plugin)
The plugin name must be the same as the plugin’s class name.
Now, we can open our favorite text editors and create xep_0077.py
in
Slixmpp/slixmpp/plugins
. We want to do some basic house-keeping and
declare the name and description of the XEP we are implementing. If you
are creating your own custom plugin, you don’t need to include the xep
attribute.
"""
Creating a Slixmpp Plugin
This is a minimal implementation of XEP-0077 to serve
as a tutorial for creating Slixmpp plugins.
"""
from slixmpp.plugins.base import BasePlugin
class xep_0077(BasePlugin):
"""
XEP-0077 In-Band Registration
"""
def plugin_init(self):
self.description = "In-Band Registration"
self.xep = "0077"
Now that we have a basic plugin, we need to edit
slixmpp/plugins/__init__.py
to include our new plugin by adding
'xep_0077'
to the __all__
declaration.
Interacting with Other Plugins¶
In-band registration is a feature that should be advertised through Service
Discovery. To do that, we tell the
xep_0030
plugin to add the "jabber:iq:register"
feature. We put this
call in a method named post_init
which will be called once the plugin has
been loaded; by doing so we advertise that we can do registrations only after we
finish activating the plugin.
The post_init
method needs to call BasePlugin.post_init(self)
which will mark that post_init
has been called for the plugin. Once the
Slixmpp object begins processing, post_init
will be called on any plugins
that have not already run post_init
. This allows you to register plugins and
their dependencies without needing to worry about the order in which you do so.
Note: by adding this call we have introduced a dependency on the XEP-0030
plugin. Be sure to register 'xep_0030'
as well as 'xep_0077'
. Slixmpp
does not automatically load plugin dependencies for you.
def post_init(self):
BasePlugin.post_init(self)
self.xmpp['xep_0030'].add_feature("jabber:iq:register")
Creating Custom Stanza Objects¶
Now, the IQ stanzas needed to implement our version of XEP-0077 are not very complex, and we could just interact with the XML objects directly just like in the XMPP: The Definitive Guide example. However, creating custom stanza objects is good practice.
We will create a new Registration
stanza. Following the XMPP: The
Definitive Guide example, we will add support for a username and password
field. We also need two flags: registered
and remove
. The registered
flag is sent when an already registered user attempts to register, along with
their registration data. The remove
flag is a request to unregister a user’s
account.
Adding additional fields specified in XEP-0077 will not be difficult and is left as an exercise for the reader.
Our Registration
class needs to start with a few descriptions of its
behaviour:
namespace
The namespace our stanza object lives in. In this case,
"jabber:iq:register"
.
name
The name of the root XML element. In this case, the
query
element.
plugin_attrib
The name to access this type of stanza. In particular, given a registration stanza, the
Registration
object can be found using:iq_object['register']
.
interfaces
A list of dictionary-like keys that can be used with the stanza object. When using
"key"
, if there exists a method of the formgetKey
,setKey
, or``delKey`` (depending on context) then the result of calling that method will be returned. Otherwise, the value of the attributekey
of the main stanza element is returned if one exists.Note: The accessor methods currently use title case, and not camel case. Thus if you need to access an item named
"methodName"
you will need to usegetMethodname
. This naming convention might change to full camel case in a future version of Slixmpp.
sub_interfaces
A subset of
interfaces
, but these keys map to the text of any subelements that are direct children of the main stanza element. Thus, referencingiq_object['register']['username']
will either executegetUsername
or return the value in theusername
element of the query.If you need to access an element, say
elem
, that is not a direct child of the main stanza element, you will need to addgetElem
,setElem
, anddelElem
. See the note above about naming conventions.
from slixmpp.xmlstream import ElementBase, ET, JID, register_stanza_plugin
from slixmpp import Iq
class Registration(ElementBase):
namespace = 'jabber:iq:register'
name = 'query'
plugin_attrib = 'register'
interfaces = {'username', 'password', 'registered', 'remove'}
sub_interfaces = interfaces
def getRegistered(self):
present = self.xml.find('{%s}registered' % self.namespace)
return present is not None
def getRemove(self):
present = self.xml.find('{%s}remove' % self.namespace)
return present is not None
def setRegistered(self, registered):
if registered:
self.addField('registered')
else:
del self['registered']
def setRemove(self, remove):
if remove:
self.addField('remove')
else:
del self['remove']
def addField(self, name):
itemXML = ET.Element('{%s}%s' % (self.namespace, name))
self.xml.append(itemXML)
Setting a sub_interface
attribute to ""
will remove that subelement.
Since we want to include empty registration fields in our form, we need the
addField
method to add the empty elements.
Since the registered
and remove
elements are just flags, we need to add
custom logic to enforce the binary behavior.
Extracting Stanzas from the XML Stream¶
Now that we have a custom stanza object, we need to be able to detect when we
receive one. To do this, we register a stream handler that will pattern match
stanzas off of the XML stream against our stanza object’s element name and
namespace. To do so, we need to create a Callback
object which contains
an XML fragment that can identify our stanza type. We can add this handler
registration to our plugin_init
method.
Also, we need to associate our Registration
class with IQ stanzas;
that requires the use of the register_stanza_plugin
function (in
slixmpp.xmlstream.stanzabase
) which takes the class of a parent stanza
type followed by the substanza type. In our case, the parent stanza is an IQ
stanza, and the substanza is our registration query.
The __handleRegistration
method referenced in the callback will be our
handler function to process registration requests.
def plugin_init(self):
self.description = "In-Band Registration"
self.xep = "0077"
self.xmpp.register_handler(
Callback('In-Band Registration',
MatchXPath('{%s}iq/{jabber:iq:register}query' % self.xmpp.default_ns),
self.__handleRegistration))
register_stanza_plugin(Iq, Registration)
Handling Incoming Stanzas and Triggering Events¶
There are six situations that we need to handle to finish our implementation of XEP-0077.
Registration Form Request from a New User:
<iq type="result"> <query xmlns="jabber:iq:register"> <username /> <password /> </query> </iq>
Registration Form Request from an Existing User:
<iq type="result"> <query xmlns="jabber:iq:register"> <registered /> <username>Foo</username> <password>hunter2</password> </query> </iq>
Unregister Account:
<iq type="result"> <query xmlns="jabber:iq:register" /> </iq>
Incomplete Registration:
<iq type="error"> <query xmlns="jabber:iq:register"> <username>Foo</username> </query> <error code="406" type="modify"> <not-acceptable xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xmpp-stanzas" /> </error> </iq>
Conflicting Registrations:
<iq type="error"> <query xmlns="jabber:iq:register"> <username>Foo</username> <password>hunter2</password> </query> <error code="409" type="cancel"> <conflict xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xmpp-stanzas" /> </error> </iq>
Successful Registration:
<iq type="result"> <query xmlns="jabber:iq:register" /> </iq>
Cases 1 and 2: Registration Requests¶
Responding to registration requests depends on if the requesting user already
has an account. If there is an account, the response should include the
registered
flag and the user’s current registration information. Otherwise,
we just send the fields for our registration form.
We will handle both cases by creating a sendRegistrationForm
method that
will create either an empty of full form depending on if we provide it with
user data. Since we need to know which form fields to include (especially if we
add support for the other fields specified in XEP-0077), we will also create a
method setForm
which will take the names of the fields we wish to include.
def plugin_init(self):
self.description = "In-Band Registration"
self.xep = "0077"
self.form_fields = ('username', 'password')
... remainder of plugin_init
...
def __handleRegistration(self, iq):
if iq['type'] == 'get':
# Registration form requested
userData = self.backend[iq['from'].bare]
self.sendRegistrationForm(iq, userData)
def setForm(self, *fields):
self.form_fields = fields
def sendRegistrationForm(self, iq, userData=None):
reg = iq['register']
if userData is None:
userData = {}
else:
reg['registered'] = True
for field in self.form_fields:
data = userData.get(field, '')
if data:
# Add field with existing data
reg[field] = data
else:
# Add a blank field
reg.addField(field)
iq.reply().set_payload(reg.xml)
iq.send()
Note how we are able to access our Registration
stanza object with
iq['register']
.
A User Backend¶
You might have noticed the reference to self.backend
, which is an object
that abstracts away storing and retrieving user information. Since it is not
much more than a dictionary, we will leave the implementation details to the
final, full source code example.
Case 3: Unregister an Account¶
The next simplest case to consider is responding to a request to remove
an account. If we receive a remove
flag, we instruct the backend to
remove the user’s account. Since your application may need to know about
when users are registered or unregistered, we trigger an event using
self.xmpp.event('unregister_user', iq)
. See the component examples below for
how to respond to that event.
def __handleRegistration(self, iq):
if iq['type'] == 'get':
# Registration form requested
userData = self.backend[iq['from'].bare]
self.sendRegistrationForm(iq, userData)
elif iq['type'] == 'set':
# Remove an account
if iq['register']['remove']:
self.backend.unregister(iq['from'].bare)
self.xmpp.event('unregistered_user', iq)
iq.reply().send()
return
Case 4: Incomplete Registration¶
For the next case we need to check the user’s registration to ensure it has all of the fields we wanted. The simple option that we will use is to loop over the field names and check each one; however, this means that all fields we send to the user are required. Adding optional fields is left to the reader.
Since we have received an incomplete form, we need to send an error message back
to the user. We have to send a few different types of errors, so we will also
create a _sendError
method that will add the appropriate error
element
to the IQ reply.
def __handleRegistration(self, iq):
if iq['type'] == 'get':
# Registration form requested
userData = self.backend[iq['from'].bare]
self.sendRegistrationForm(iq, userData)
elif iq['type'] == 'set':
if iq['register']['remove']:
# Remove an account
self.backend.unregister(iq['from'].bare)
self.xmpp.event('unregistered_user', iq)
iq.reply().send()
return
for field in self.form_fields:
if not iq['register'][field]:
# Incomplete Registration
self._sendError(iq, '406', 'modify', 'not-acceptable'
"Please fill in all fields.")
return
...
def _sendError(self, iq, code, error_type, name, text=''):
iq.reply().set_payload(iq['register'].xml)
iq.error()
iq['error']['code'] = code
iq['error']['type'] = error_type
iq['error']['condition'] = name
iq['error']['text'] = text
iq.send()
Cases 5 and 6: Conflicting and Successful Registration¶
We are down to the final decision on if we have a successful registration. We
send the user’s data to the backend with the self.backend.register
method.
If it returns True
, then registration has been successful. Otherwise,
there has been a conflict with usernames and registration has failed. Like
with unregistering an account, we trigger an event indicating that a user has
been registered by using self.xmpp.event('registered_user', iq)
. See the
component examples below for how to respond to this event.
def __handleRegistration(self, iq):
if iq['type'] == 'get':
# Registration form requested
userData = self.backend[iq['from'].bare]
self.sendRegistrationForm(iq, userData)
elif iq['type'] == 'set':
if iq['register']['remove']:
# Remove an account
self.backend.unregister(iq['from'].bare)
self.xmpp.event('unregistered_user', iq)
iq.reply().send()
return
for field in self.form_fields:
if not iq['register'][field]:
# Incomplete Registration
self._sendError(iq, '406', 'modify', 'not-acceptable',
"Please fill in all fields.")
return
if self.backend.register(iq['from'].bare, iq['register']):
# Successful registration
self.xmpp.event('registered_user', iq)
iq.reply().set_payload(iq['register'].xml)
iq.send()
else:
# Conflicting registration
self._sendError(iq, '409', 'cancel', 'conflict',
"That username is already taken.")
Example Component Using the XEP-0077 Plugin¶
Alright, the moment we’ve been working towards - actually using our plugin to simplify our other applications. Here is a basic component that simply manages user registrations and sends the user a welcoming message when they register, and a farewell message when they delete their account.
Note that we have to register the 'xep_0030'
plugin first,
and that we specified the form fields we wish to use with
self.xmpp.plugin['xep_0077'].setForm('username', 'password')
.
import slixmpp.componentxmpp
class Example(slixmpp.componentxmpp.ComponentXMPP):
def __init__(self, jid, password):
slixmpp.componentxmpp.ComponentXMPP.__init__(self, jid, password, 'localhost', 8888)
self.register_plugin('xep_0030')
self.register_plugin('xep_0077')
self.plugin['xep_0077'].setForm('username', 'password')
self.add_event_handler("registered_user", self.reg)
self.add_event_handler("unregistered_user", self.unreg)
def reg(self, iq):
msg = "Welcome! %s" % iq['register']['username']
self.send_message(iq['from'], msg, mfrom=self.fulljid)
def unreg(self, iq):
msg = "Bye! %s" % iq['register']['username']
self.send_message(iq['from'], msg, mfrom=self.fulljid)
Congratulations! We now have a basic, functioning implementation of XEP-0077.
Complete Source Code for XEP-0077 Plugin¶
Here is a copy of a more complete implementation of the plugin we created, but with some additional registration fields implemented.
"""
Creating a Slixmpp Plugin
This is a minimal implementation of XEP-0077 to serve
as a tutorial for creating Slixmpp plugins.
"""
from slixmpp.plugins.base import BasePlugin
from slixmpp.xmlstream.handler.callback import Callback
from slixmpp.xmlstream.matcher.xpath import MatchXPath
from slixmpp.xmlstream import ElementBase, ET, JID, register_stanza_plugin
from slixmpp import Iq
import copy
class Registration(ElementBase):
namespace = 'jabber:iq:register'
name = 'query'
plugin_attrib = 'register'
interfaces = {'username', 'password', 'email', 'nick', 'name',
'first', 'last', 'address', 'city', 'state', 'zip',
'phone', 'url', 'date', 'misc', 'text', 'key',
'registered', 'remove', 'instructions'}
sub_interfaces = interfaces
def getRegistered(self):
present = self.xml.find('{%s}registered' % self.namespace)
return present is not None
def getRemove(self):
present = self.xml.find('{%s}remove' % self.namespace)
return present is not None
def setRegistered(self, registered):
if registered:
self.addField('registered')
else:
del self['registered']
def setRemove(self, remove):
if remove:
self.addField('remove')
else:
del self['remove']
def addField(self, name):
itemXML = ET.Element('{%s}%s' % (self.namespace, name))
self.xml.append(itemXML)
class UserStore(object):
def __init__(self):
self.users = {}
def __getitem__(self, jid):
return self.users.get(jid, None)
def register(self, jid, registration):
username = registration['username']
def filter_usernames(user):
return user != jid and self.users[user]['username'] == username
conflicts = filter(filter_usernames, self.users.keys())
if conflicts:
return False
self.users[jid] = registration
return True
def unregister(self, jid):
del self.users[jid]
class xep_0077(BasePlugin):
"""
XEP-0077 In-Band Registration
"""
def plugin_init(self):
self.description = "In-Band Registration"
self.xep = "0077"
self.form_fields = ('username', 'password')
self.form_instructions = ""
self.backend = UserStore()
self.xmpp.register_handler(
Callback('In-Band Registration',
MatchXPath('{%s}iq/{jabber:iq:register}query' % self.xmpp.default_ns),
self.__handleRegistration))
register_stanza_plugin(Iq, Registration)
def post_init(self):
BasePlugin.post_init(self)
self.xmpp['xep_0030'].add_feature("jabber:iq:register")
def __handleRegistration(self, iq):
if iq['type'] == 'get':
# Registration form requested
userData = self.backend[iq['from'].bare]
self.sendRegistrationForm(iq, userData)
elif iq['type'] == 'set':
if iq['register']['remove']:
# Remove an account
self.backend.unregister(iq['from'].bare)
self.xmpp.event('unregistered_user', iq)
iq.reply().send()
return
for field in self.form_fields:
if not iq['register'][field]:
# Incomplete Registration
self._sendError(iq, '406', 'modify', 'not-acceptable',
"Please fill in all fields.")
return
if self.backend.register(iq['from'].bare, iq['register']):
# Successful registration
self.xmpp.event('registered_user', iq)
reply = iq.reply()
reply.set_payload(iq['register'].xml)
reply.send()
else:
# Conflicting registration
self._sendError(iq, '409', 'cancel', 'conflict',
"That username is already taken.")
def setForm(self, *fields):
self.form_fields = fields
def setInstructions(self, instructions):
self.form_instructions = instructions
def sendRegistrationForm(self, iq, userData=None):
reg = iq['register']
if userData is None:
userData = {}
else:
reg['registered'] = True
if self.form_instructions:
reg['instructions'] = self.form_instructions
for field in self.form_fields:
data = userData.get(field, '')
if data:
# Add field with existing data
reg[field] = data
else:
# Add a blank field
reg.addField(field)
reply = iq.reply()
reply.set_payload(reg.xml)
reply.send()
def _sendError(self, iq, code, error_type, name, text=''):
reply = iq.reply()
reply.set_payload(iq['register'].xml)
reply.error()
reply['error']['code'] = code
reply['error']['type'] = error_type
reply['error']['condition'] = name
reply['error']['text'] = text
reply.send()