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Best FOSS Local Messenger Service? (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago by shufflerofrocks@beehaw.org to c/foss@beehaw.org

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So I want to setup a messaging server in my home that works like Telegram or Whatsapp - it should use the local network as we plan on moving around a lot of photos and files between our devices for some projects

What should I use? XMPP? Or Matrix? Or is there something else that's ideal for local networks?

Thanks!

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[–] shufflerofrocks@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Yeah, I plan for this to be a LAN thing only, we're all currently living in the same house, and only need it when we're working indoors here, so it shouldn't be an issue.

I'm currently setting up nextcloud, as it's file transfer is impeccable, and it has a somewhat-functional chat feature. I have been having a little problem setting up the domain name + certificate - I would love to configure this to an internal IP but it seems that's not allowed for some reason - nextcloud documentation is suggesting a reverse proxy for setting up a local instance which seems like .... double the work? I'll try that if nothing else works out, and I'm gonna try it with a self-signed certificate for now, if that fails I'm not sure

[–] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The way I setup the domain name was to buy a domain from Namecheap for use for "private" and LAN use. Then I assigned my server to a subdomain of that. Then I setup my VPS that I have at Linode to also host that subdomain too and to mint a LetsEncrypt cert for it and keep the cert up to date. Then periodically I have my local server fetch the cert from my VPS.

There may be other ways. Maybe using port forwarding and dynamic DNS would have worked. Maybe I could have shelled out money and purchased a domain signing cert from say Digicert. I use to use my own CA and add it to my devices. Linux and maybe Windows too allows that but not Android, so that is why I purchased a domain and went through the drama minting a real cert. Also could have added my server as a subdomain of one I already had, but wanted my "private" stuff on a different domain then my public server for a little more privacy and long term flexibility. Also did not want to use port forwarding and dynamic DNS for security reasons though I think could have.