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M-Link Management

On this page you'll find information on Isode management tools for M-Link. On other pages you'll find a general overview of Isode's M-Link XMPP Server, M-Link's use of Directory, security features, support for wide and local area clustering,  boundary controls using M-Link Edge and standards conformance.

M-Link Management Approach

M-Link has a number of approaches to different types of management which are:

  • User Accounts are setup in the directory. These can be managed externally by independent provisioning or tools. Isode provides Web based administration tools for accounts.
  • M-Link server configuration is held in the directory. Isode provides GUI tools to create, visualize and manage this configuration.
  • XMPP can be used directly to manage some elements of configuration, and in particular MUC rooms.
  • XMPP Ad Hoc commands can be used for a range of server monitoring and administrative tasks.
  • SNMP monitoring can be used to integrate server monitoring with Enterprise monitoring of network and application components.

M-Link’s use of directory is key to the management approach. Configuration information is held in the directory, and may be managed there or managed by XMPP. Account and group information is held in the directory, and may be managed by Isode tools or independently.

More details on M-Link use of directory is given in the whitepaper [XMPP, M-Link and Directory].

M-Link Console (MLC)

M-Link Console, the first release of which is available with R15.0, is a simple GUI management tool that enables the rapid deployment and monitoring of an M-Link system. Capabilities include:

Server Setup and Configuration

MLC's simple GUI wizard guides you through the process of setting up a basic M-Link installation including DSA creation and generation of configuration files.

 

Server and Service Monitoring

MLC contains basic monitoring capabilities for multiple XMPP servers and services, including:

  • Status checks on multiple XMPP servers.
  • Roster view, for the operator to visualize a client's roster. This is important to help determine if user reported problems are client side or in the service.
  • Archive browsing, for easy display of chat and MUC archives.
  • Telemetry log viewing, to facilitate protocol debug.
  • User search (XEP-0055).

 

GUI Directory Management

Isode's Sodium directory management tool allows full control of directory-held configuration, user account and profile information, rosters and password policy controls. Sodium is shipped as part of Isode's M-Vault directory.

 

Browser-Based Directory Tools for Account Management

Isode's Internet Messaging Administrator (IMA) is a set of highly-configurable browser-based management tools for Isode's internet messaging products, including M-Link.

For XMPP system management, IMA provides management options (in addition to a directory browser) at three levels:

  • System Administrators: System-wide creation and management of Users, User Groups, User Roles and Realms (collections of domains for administrative purposes).
  • Delegated Administrators: Creation and management of Realms and Users over which delegated administrative rights have been granted by the System Administrator.
  • Individual Users: Control of personal information and password.

Click on the thumbnails below to show/hide detailed screenshots of IMA from the System Administrator, Delegated Administrator and User perspectives. You can read more about IMA here.

 

MUC Room Management

MUC rooms will often be managed by XMPP, and temporary MUC rooms will always be managed this way. When permanent rooms are managed by XMPP, M-Link will update the directory configuration. Many XMPP clients provide a management interface for creating, deleting, and managing MUC rooms.

Ad Hoc Commands

Ad Hoc commands (XEP-0050) give an approach for managing an XMPP server from an XMPP client, this enables administrative actions, configuration, and monitoring. XMPP defines a number of Ad Hoc commands for server management in XEP-0133. Standard commands supported by M-Link are change password, get user stats, number of online users, list active users, send announcement. Isode commands are: rename user, list s2s sessions, s2s stats, cluster info (membership), dump router table, user config. The following screen shot shows the result of an sys command to monitor an M-Link server.

SNMP Monitoring

M-Link includes SNMP support, to enable monitoring of key server performance metrics with network management tools such as Openview, or with Web applications.

The SNMP framework enables monitoring of an enormous variety of network components and applications by use of the MIB (Management Information Base) concept. A MIB defines the variables that are available in the application to be monitored using SNMP.

MIB support in M-Link includes:

  • Network Services Monitoring MIB (RFC 2788).
  • The 'Isode Services MIB' an Isode extension to RFC 2788 to include authentication and encryption data, bandwidth counts per session and session type.
  • The 'Isode XMPP MIB' which provides XMPP-specific statistics such as stanza counts.

Amongst other capabilities, monitoring enables the operator to see the number of connections (client/server and server/server), the operation rate for different types of operation, where encryption is used and bandwidth usage.

Further information on the benefits of SNMP monitoring is given on the page discussing Isode's SNMP Architecture.