3 Creating a Slixmpp Plugin
4 ===========================
6 One of the goals of Slixmpp is to provide support for every draft or final
7 XMPP extension (`XEP <http://xmpp.org/extensions/>`_). To do this, Slixmpp has a
8 plugin mechanism for adding the functionalities required by each XEP. But even
9 though plugins were made to quickly implement and prototype the official XMPP
10 extensions, there is no reason you can't create your own plugin to implement
11 your own custom XMPP-based protocol.
13 This guide will help walk you through the steps to
14 implement a rudimentary version of `XEP-0077 In-band
15 Registration <http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0077.html>`_. In-band registration
16 was implemented in example 14-6 (page 223) of `XMPP: The Definitive
17 Guide <http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596521271>`_ because there was no Slixmpp
18 plugin for XEP-0077 at the time of writing. We will partially fix that issue
19 here by turning the example implementation from *XMPP: The Definitive Guide*
20 into a plugin. Again, note that this will not a complete implementation, and a
21 different, more robust, official plugin for XEP-0077 may be added to Slixmpp
26 The example plugin created in this guide is for the server side of the
27 registration process only. It will **NOT** be able to register new accounts
32 Every plugin inherits from the class :mod:`base_plugin <slixmpp.plugins.base.base_plugin>`,
33 and must include a ``plugin_init`` method. While the
34 plugins distributed with Slixmpp must be placed in the plugins directory
35 ``slixmpp/plugins`` to be loaded, custom plugins may be loaded from any
36 module. To do so, use the following form when registering the plugin:
38 .. code-block:: python
40 self.register_plugin('myplugin', module=mod_containing_my_plugin)
42 The plugin name must be the same as the plugin's class name.
44 Now, we can open our favorite text editors and create ``xep_0077.py`` in
45 ``Slixmpp/slixmpp/plugins``. We want to do some basic house-keeping and
46 declare the name and description of the XEP we are implementing. If you
47 are creating your own custom plugin, you don't need to include the ``xep``
50 .. code-block:: python
53 Creating a Slixmpp Plugin
55 This is a minimal implementation of XEP-0077 to serve
56 as a tutorial for creating Slixmpp plugins.
59 from slixmpp.plugins.base import base_plugin
61 class xep_0077(base_plugin):
63 XEP-0077 In-Band Registration
66 def plugin_init(self):
67 self.description = "In-Band Registration"
70 Now that we have a basic plugin, we need to edit
71 ``slixmpp/plugins/__init__.py`` to include our new plugin by adding
72 ``'xep_0077'`` to the ``__all__`` declaration.
74 Interacting with Other Plugins
75 ------------------------------
77 In-band registration is a feature that should be advertised through `Service
78 Discovery <http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0030.html>`_. To do that, we tell the
79 ``xep_0030`` plugin to add the ``"jabber:iq:register"`` feature. We put this
80 call in a method named ``post_init`` which will be called once the plugin has
81 been loaded; by doing so we advertise that we can do registrations only after we
82 finish activating the plugin.
84 The ``post_init`` method needs to call ``base_plugin.post_init(self)``
85 which will mark that ``post_init`` has been called for the plugin. Once the
86 Slixmpp object begins processing, ``post_init`` will be called on any plugins
87 that have not already run ``post_init``. This allows you to register plugins and
88 their dependencies without needing to worry about the order in which you do so.
90 **Note:** by adding this call we have introduced a dependency on the XEP-0030
91 plugin. Be sure to register ``'xep_0030'`` as well as ``'xep_0077'``. Slixmpp
92 does not automatically load plugin dependencies for you.
94 .. code-block:: python
97 base_plugin.post_init(self)
98 self.xmpp['xep_0030'].add_feature("jabber:iq:register")
100 Creating Custom Stanza Objects
101 ------------------------------
103 Now, the IQ stanzas needed to implement our version of XEP-0077 are not very
104 complex, and we could just interact with the XML objects directly just like
105 in the *XMPP: The Definitive Guide* example. However, creating custom stanza
106 objects is good practice.
108 We will create a new ``Registration`` stanza. Following the *XMPP: The
109 Definitive Guide* example, we will add support for a username and password
110 field. We also need two flags: ``registered`` and ``remove``. The ``registered``
111 flag is sent when an already registered user attempts to register, along with
112 their registration data. The ``remove`` flag is a request to unregister a user's
115 Adding additional `fields specified in
116 XEP-0077 <http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0077.html#registrar-formtypes-register>`_
117 will not be difficult and is left as an exercise for the reader.
119 Our ``Registration`` class needs to start with a few descriptions of its
123 The namespace our stanza object lives in. In this case,
124 ``"jabber:iq:register"``.
127 The name of the root XML element. In this case, the ``query`` element.
130 The name to access this type of stanza. In particular, given a
131 registration stanza, the ``Registration`` object can be found using:
132 ``iq_object['register']``.
135 A list of dictionary-like keys that can be used with the stanza object.
136 When using ``"key"``, if there exists a method of the form ``getKey``,
137 ``setKey``, or``delKey`` (depending on context) then the result of calling
138 that method will be returned. Otherwise, the value of the attribute ``key``
139 of the main stanza element is returned if one exists.
141 **Note:** The accessor methods currently use title case, and not camel case.
142 Thus if you need to access an item named ``"methodName"`` you will need to
143 use ``getMethodname``. This naming convention might change to full camel
144 case in a future version of Slixmpp.
147 A subset of ``interfaces``, but these keys map to the text of any
148 subelements that are direct children of the main stanza element. Thus,
149 referencing ``iq_object['register']['username']`` will either execute
150 ``getUsername`` or return the value in the ``username`` element of the
153 If you need to access an element, say ``elem``, that is not a direct child
154 of the main stanza element, you will need to add ``getElem``, ``setElem``,
155 and ``delElem``. See the note above about naming conventions.
157 .. code-block:: python
159 from slixmpp.xmlstream import ElementBase, ET, JID, register_stanza_plugin
160 from slixmpp import Iq
162 class Registration(ElementBase):
163 namespace = 'jabber:iq:register'
165 plugin_attrib = 'register'
166 interfaces = set(('username', 'password', 'registered', 'remove'))
167 sub_interfaces = interfaces
169 def getRegistered(self):
170 present = self.xml.find('{%s}registered' % self.namespace)
171 return present is not None
174 present = self.xml.find('{%s}remove' % self.namespace)
175 return present is not None
177 def setRegistered(self, registered):
179 self.addField('registered')
181 del self['registered']
183 def setRemove(self, remove):
185 self.addField('remove')
189 def addField(self, name):
190 itemXML = ET.Element('{%s}%s' % (self.namespace, name))
191 self.xml.append(itemXML)
193 Setting a ``sub_interface`` attribute to ``""`` will remove that subelement.
194 Since we want to include empty registration fields in our form, we need the
195 ``addField`` method to add the empty elements.
197 Since the ``registered`` and ``remove`` elements are just flags, we need to add
198 custom logic to enforce the binary behavior.
200 Extracting Stanzas from the XML Stream
201 --------------------------------------
203 Now that we have a custom stanza object, we need to be able to detect when we
204 receive one. To do this, we register a stream handler that will pattern match
205 stanzas off of the XML stream against our stanza object's element name and
206 namespace. To do so, we need to create a ``Callback`` object which contains
207 an XML fragment that can identify our stanza type. We can add this handler
208 registration to our ``plugin_init`` method.
210 Also, we need to associate our ``Registration`` class with IQ stanzas;
211 that requires the use of the ``register_stanza_plugin`` function (in
212 ``slixmpp.xmlstream.stanzabase``) which takes the class of a parent stanza
213 type followed by the substanza type. In our case, the parent stanza is an IQ
214 stanza, and the substanza is our registration query.
216 The ``__handleRegistration`` method referenced in the callback will be our
217 handler function to process registration requests.
219 .. code-block:: python
221 def plugin_init(self):
222 self.description = "In-Band Registration"
225 self.xmpp.register_handler(
226 Callback('In-Band Registration',
227 MatchXPath('{%s}iq/{jabber:iq:register}query' % self.xmpp.default_ns),
228 self.__handleRegistration))
229 register_stanza_plugin(Iq, Registration)
231 Handling Incoming Stanzas and Triggering Events
232 -----------------------------------------------
233 There are six situations that we need to handle to finish our implementation of
236 **Registration Form Request from a New User:**
241 <query xmlns="jabber:iq:register">
247 **Registration Form Request from an Existing User:**
252 <query xmlns="jabber:iq:register">
254 <username>Foo</username>
255 <password>hunter2</password>
259 **Unregister Account:**
264 <query xmlns="jabber:iq:register" />
267 **Incomplete Registration:**
272 <query xmlns="jabber:iq:register">
273 <username>Foo</username>
275 <error code="406" type="modify">
276 <not-acceptable xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xmpp-stanzas" />
280 **Conflicting Registrations:**
285 <query xmlns="jabber:iq:register">
286 <username>Foo</username>
287 <password>hunter2</password>
289 <error code="409" type="cancel">
290 <conflict xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:xmpp-stanzas" />
294 **Successful Registration:**
299 <query xmlns="jabber:iq:register" />
302 Cases 1 and 2: Registration Requests
303 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
304 Responding to registration requests depends on if the requesting user already
305 has an account. If there is an account, the response should include the
306 ``registered`` flag and the user's current registration information. Otherwise,
307 we just send the fields for our registration form.
309 We will handle both cases by creating a ``sendRegistrationForm`` method that
310 will create either an empty of full form depending on if we provide it with
311 user data. Since we need to know which form fields to include (especially if we
312 add support for the other fields specified in XEP-0077), we will also create a
313 method ``setForm`` which will take the names of the fields we wish to include.
315 .. code-block:: python
317 def plugin_init(self):
318 self.description = "In-Band Registration"
320 self.form_fields = ('username', 'password')
321 ... remainder of plugin_init
325 def __handleRegistration(self, iq):
326 if iq['type'] == 'get':
327 # Registration form requested
328 userData = self.backend[iq['from'].bare]
329 self.sendRegistrationForm(iq, userData)
331 def setForm(self, *fields):
332 self.form_fields = fields
334 def sendRegistrationForm(self, iq, userData=None):
339 reg['registered'] = True
341 for field in self.form_fields:
342 data = userData.get(field, '')
344 # Add field with existing data
350 iq.reply().setPayload(reg.xml)
353 Note how we are able to access our ``Registration`` stanza object with
358 You might have noticed the reference to ``self.backend``, which is an object
359 that abstracts away storing and retrieving user information. Since it is not
360 much more than a dictionary, we will leave the implementation details to the
361 final, full source code example.
363 Case 3: Unregister an Account
364 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
365 The next simplest case to consider is responding to a request to remove
366 an account. If we receive a ``remove`` flag, we instruct the backend to
367 remove the user's account. Since your application may need to know about
368 when users are registered or unregistered, we trigger an event using
369 ``self.xmpp.event('unregister_user', iq)``. See the component examples below for
370 how to respond to that event.
372 .. code-block:: python
374 def __handleRegistration(self, iq):
375 if iq['type'] == 'get':
376 # Registration form requested
377 userData = self.backend[iq['from'].bare]
378 self.sendRegistrationForm(iq, userData)
379 elif iq['type'] == 'set':
381 if iq['register']['remove']:
382 self.backend.unregister(iq['from'].bare)
383 self.xmpp.event('unregistered_user', iq)
387 Case 4: Incomplete Registration
388 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
389 For the next case we need to check the user's registration to ensure it has all
390 of the fields we wanted. The simple option that we will use is to loop over the
391 field names and check each one; however, this means that all fields we send to
392 the user are required. Adding optional fields is left to the reader.
394 Since we have received an incomplete form, we need to send an error message back
395 to the user. We have to send a few different types of errors, so we will also
396 create a ``_sendError`` method that will add the appropriate ``error`` element
399 .. code-block:: python
401 def __handleRegistration(self, iq):
402 if iq['type'] == 'get':
403 # Registration form requested
404 userData = self.backend[iq['from'].bare]
405 self.sendRegistrationForm(iq, userData)
406 elif iq['type'] == 'set':
407 if iq['register']['remove']:
409 self.backend.unregister(iq['from'].bare)
410 self.xmpp.event('unregistered_user', iq)
414 for field in self.form_fields:
415 if not iq['register'][field]:
416 # Incomplete Registration
417 self._sendError(iq, '406', 'modify', 'not-acceptable'
418 "Please fill in all fields.")
423 def _sendError(self, iq, code, error_type, name, text=''):
424 iq.reply().setPayload(iq['register'].xml)
426 iq['error']['code'] = code
427 iq['error']['type'] = error_type
428 iq['error']['condition'] = name
429 iq['error']['text'] = text
432 Cases 5 and 6: Conflicting and Successful Registration
433 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
434 We are down to the final decision on if we have a successful registration. We
435 send the user's data to the backend with the ``self.backend.register`` method.
436 If it returns ``True``, then registration has been successful. Otherwise,
437 there has been a conflict with usernames and registration has failed. Like
438 with unregistering an account, we trigger an event indicating that a user has
439 been registered by using ``self.xmpp.event('registered_user', iq)``. See the
440 component examples below for how to respond to this event.
442 .. code-block:: python
444 def __handleRegistration(self, iq):
445 if iq['type'] == 'get':
446 # Registration form requested
447 userData = self.backend[iq['from'].bare]
448 self.sendRegistrationForm(iq, userData)
449 elif iq['type'] == 'set':
450 if iq['register']['remove']:
452 self.backend.unregister(iq['from'].bare)
453 self.xmpp.event('unregistered_user', iq)
457 for field in self.form_fields:
458 if not iq['register'][field]:
459 # Incomplete Registration
460 self._sendError(iq, '406', 'modify', 'not-acceptable',
461 "Please fill in all fields.")
464 if self.backend.register(iq['from'].bare, iq['register']):
465 # Successful registration
466 self.xmpp.event('registered_user', iq)
467 iq.reply().setPayload(iq['register'].xml)
470 # Conflicting registration
471 self._sendError(iq, '409', 'cancel', 'conflict',
472 "That username is already taken.")
474 Example Component Using the XEP-0077 Plugin
475 -------------------------------------------
476 Alright, the moment we've been working towards - actually using our plugin to
477 simplify our other applications. Here is a basic component that simply manages
478 user registrations and sends the user a welcoming message when they register,
479 and a farewell message when they delete their account.
481 Note that we have to register the ``'xep_0030'`` plugin first,
482 and that we specified the form fields we wish to use with
483 ``self.xmpp.plugin['xep_0077'].setForm('username', 'password')``.
485 .. code-block:: python
487 import slixmpp.componentxmpp
489 class Example(slixmpp.componentxmpp.ComponentXMPP):
491 def __init__(self, jid, password):
492 slixmpp.componentxmpp.ComponentXMPP.__init__(self, jid, password, 'localhost', 8888)
494 self.registerPlugin('xep_0030')
495 self.registerPlugin('xep_0077')
496 self.plugin['xep_0077'].setForm('username', 'password')
498 self.add_event_handler("registered_user", self.reg)
499 self.add_event_handler("unregistered_user", self.unreg)
502 msg = "Welcome! %s" % iq['register']['username']
503 self.sendMessage(iq['from'], msg, mfrom=self.fulljid)
506 msg = "Bye! %s" % iq['register']['username']
507 self.sendMessage(iq['from'], msg, mfrom=self.fulljid)
509 **Congratulations!** We now have a basic, functioning implementation of
512 Complete Source Code for XEP-0077 Plugin
513 ----------------------------------------
514 Here is a copy of a more complete implementation of the plugin we created, but
515 with some additional registration fields implemented.
517 .. code-block:: python
520 Creating a Slixmpp Plugin
522 This is a minimal implementation of XEP-0077 to serve
523 as a tutorial for creating Slixmpp plugins.
526 from slixmpp.plugins.base import base_plugin
527 from slixmpp.xmlstream.handler.callback import Callback
528 from slixmpp.xmlstream.matcher.xpath import MatchXPath
529 from slixmpp.xmlstream import ElementBase, ET, JID, register_stanza_plugin
530 from slixmpp import Iq
534 class Registration(ElementBase):
535 namespace = 'jabber:iq:register'
537 plugin_attrib = 'register'
538 interfaces = set(('username', 'password', 'email', 'nick', 'name',
539 'first', 'last', 'address', 'city', 'state', 'zip',
540 'phone', 'url', 'date', 'misc', 'text', 'key',
541 'registered', 'remove', 'instructions'))
542 sub_interfaces = interfaces
544 def getRegistered(self):
545 present = self.xml.find('{%s}registered' % self.namespace)
546 return present is not None
549 present = self.xml.find('{%s}remove' % self.namespace)
550 return present is not None
552 def setRegistered(self, registered):
554 self.addField('registered')
556 del self['registered']
558 def setRemove(self, remove):
560 self.addField('remove')
564 def addField(self, name):
565 itemXML = ET.Element('{%s}%s' % (self.namespace, name))
566 self.xml.append(itemXML)
569 class UserStore(object):
573 def __getitem__(self, jid):
574 return self.users.get(jid, None)
576 def register(self, jid, registration):
577 username = registration['username']
579 def filter_usernames(user):
580 return user != jid and self.users[user]['username'] == username
582 conflicts = filter(filter_usernames, self.users.keys())
586 self.users[jid] = registration
589 def unregister(self, jid):
592 class xep_0077(base_plugin):
594 XEP-0077 In-Band Registration
597 def plugin_init(self):
598 self.description = "In-Band Registration"
600 self.form_fields = ('username', 'password')
601 self.form_instructions = ""
602 self.backend = UserStore()
604 self.xmpp.register_handler(
605 Callback('In-Band Registration',
606 MatchXPath('{%s}iq/{jabber:iq:register}query' % self.xmpp.default_ns),
607 self.__handleRegistration))
608 register_stanza_plugin(Iq, Registration)
611 base_plugin.post_init(self)
612 self.xmpp['xep_0030'].add_feature("jabber:iq:register")
614 def __handleRegistration(self, iq):
615 if iq['type'] == 'get':
616 # Registration form requested
617 userData = self.backend[iq['from'].bare]
618 self.sendRegistrationForm(iq, userData)
619 elif iq['type'] == 'set':
620 if iq['register']['remove']:
622 self.backend.unregister(iq['from'].bare)
623 self.xmpp.event('unregistered_user', iq)
627 for field in self.form_fields:
628 if not iq['register'][field]:
629 # Incomplete Registration
630 self._sendError(iq, '406', 'modify', 'not-acceptable',
631 "Please fill in all fields.")
634 if self.backend.register(iq['from'].bare, iq['register']):
635 # Successful registration
636 self.xmpp.event('registered_user', iq)
637 iq.reply().setPayload(iq['register'].xml)
640 # Conflicting registration
641 self._sendError(iq, '409', 'cancel', 'conflict',
642 "That username is already taken.")
644 def setForm(self, *fields):
645 self.form_fields = fields
647 def setInstructions(self, instructions):
648 self.form_instructions = instructions
650 def sendRegistrationForm(self, iq, userData=None):
655 reg['registered'] = True
657 if self.form_instructions:
658 reg['instructions'] = self.form_instructions
660 for field in self.form_fields:
661 data = userData.get(field, '')
663 # Add field with existing data
669 iq.reply().setPayload(reg.xml)
672 def _sendError(self, iq, code, error_type, name, text=''):
673 iq.reply().setPayload(iq['register'].xml)
675 iq['error']['code'] = code
676 iq['error']['type'] = error_type
677 iq['error']['condition'] = name
678 iq['error']['text'] = text