GTalkJsonProxy is released under the terms of the CC BY-NC-SA license.
This is the JSON proxy used by the Gchat app to talk to the GoogleTalk IM service. Its client API is JSON over HTTP, which is translates into XMPP to send to Google. Crucially, the connection is maintained on the server side and messages are sent to the phone app using Microsoft's push notification server.
Although it's currently tightly bound to Microsoft's push notification system, this server could be adapted to run battery-friendly IM clients on iOS or Android. Likewise, the GoogleTalk specific stuff can be stripped out to make a generic XMPP proxy.
There are four components involved in making Gchat work: this proxy, Google's servers, Microsoft's push notification service and the Windows Phone app itself. The connections and direction of communication (initiation) are shown below:
When the user issues the login command from the phone app, the credentials are
authenticated directly with Google (1). After successful authentication, the
client connects to the proxy (2) and invokes /login, passing the session
token to the proxy.
The proxy connects to Google's servers using the session token handed by the client (3). Incoming server notifications are forwarded to the phone via the push notification service.
It's important to note that the proxy is never shown the username and password to the client's Google account. The proxy keeps all client data (such as the auth token) encrypted in a redis store.
The "Background Information" section of this document contains links to further information on the GoogleTalk protocol and the push notification server.
- node
- npm
- redis
npm install base64
npm install xml2js
npm install gzip
npm install redis
If you get an error message saying that the base64 module cannot be found,
copy the base64.node file from node_modules/base64/build/Release to
node_modules/base64.
Generate the server key and certificate, self-sign the latter, then remove the passphrase from the former. This is the certificate presented to connecting clients. Its cn should match your host name.
openssl genrsa -aes256 -out server.key-pass 1024
openssl req -new -key server.key-pass -out server.csr
openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in server.csr -signkey server.key-pass -out server.crt
openssl rsa -in server.key-pass -out server.key
rm server.csr
Repeat the above for the client key and certificate. These identify the GTalkJsonProxy to Microsoft's Push Notification Server.
openssl genrsa -aes256 -out client.key-pass 1024
openssl req -new -key client.key-pass -out client.csr
openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in client.csr -signkey client.key-pass -out client.crt
openssl rsa -in client.key-pass -out client.key
rm client.csr
Finally, generate a key used to encrypting the stuff that gets stored in redis.
openssl genrsa -aes256 -out crypto.key-pass 1024
openssl rsa -in crypto.key-pass -out crypto.key
useradd -M -d $PWD gtalk
Start redis, run sudo node service.js. The server binds to port 443, then
drops superuser privs.
You may want to set the logging level to TRACE at the top of service.js.
Authenticate with Google, dig up your auth token. Use your requests library of
choice to fire an HTTP POST at /login with username and auth parameters
as post data.
Keep firing POST requests at the URL. There's currently no protocol specification, but the protocol can be distilled from GoogleTalk.cs in the client project.
You may want to install the Windows Phone SDK and make your own build of the client app. Yep, it's Windows only.