Instant Messaging (IM) refers to the transfer of messages between users in near real-time. These messages are usually, but not required to be, short. IMs are often used in a conversational mode, that is, the transfer of messages back and forth is fast enough for participants to maintain an interactive conversation.

We do our best to provide patches against latest Asterisk 1.4 branches and Openfire 3.5. This is currently a work in progress and patches will be available soon.

If you have have any comments and/or suggestions, please send me an email to joel [at] scopserv [dot] com.

We use theses software for Asterisk / Instant Messaging integration:

• Asterisk
  • SIP MESSAGE (RFC 3428)
  • SDP Extensions for SIP Instant Message Sessions
  • SIP Instant Message Sessions
  • SIMPLE-XMPP Gateway
• Openfire (XMPP Server)
  • Asterisk-IM Plugin
  • UserSettings Plugin

We currently use the following phones/clients for all our testing:

• Spark
• X-Lite / Eyebeam (Softphone)
• Snom 320/360/370
• Polycom IP500/IP600

The MESSAGE method is an extension to the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) that allows the transfer of Instant Messages. Since the MESSAGE request is an extension to SIP, it inherits all the request routing and security features of that protocol.

Reference: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3428.txt

The SIP MESSAGE method does not currently support any sense of a session. Instant messages sent using this method are treated like pager messages; each message stands alone and are not linked together into a conversation.

Reference: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-simple-im-sdp-00

This memo proposes a method of describing MESSAGE sessions by treating the message session just like any other media session described in an SDP body in an INVITE request.

Reference: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-simple-im-session-00

SIMPLE-XMPP Interworking Function (SIMPLE-XMPP IWF) that allows the interworking between the SIMPLE (Session initiation protocol for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions) and XMPP (eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol - also known as Jabber protocol) protocols.

Reference: http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-mierla-simple-xmpp-interworking-01.txt