ejabberd

🚀 ejabberd 25.08

We are pleased to announce a new ejabberd release: ejabberd 25.08, just a month since the previous one, with support for Matrix Hydra rooms, a few improvements and bugfixes.

Jérôme Sautret
· 7 min read
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Release Highlights:

This release includes the support for Hydra rooms in our Matrix gateway, which fixes high severity protocol vulnerabilities.

If you are upgrading from a previous version, there are no changes in SQL schemas, configuration, API commands or hooks.

Other contents:

Below is a detailed breakdown of the improvements and enhancements:

Improvements in Matrix gateway

The ejabberd Matrix gateway now supports Hydra rooms (Matrix room version 12). This fix some high severity protocol vulnerabilities. The state resolution has been partially rewritten in our gateway.

A double colon is used for separating a matrix server from a room ID in JID with Hydra rooms.

Other changes to the matrix gateway:

  • The new option notary_servers of mod_matrix_gw can now be used to set a list of notary servers.
  • Add leave_timeout option to mod_matrix_gw (#4386)
  • Don't send empty direct Matrix messages (thanks to snoopcatt) (#4420)

Fixed ACME in Erlang/OTP 28.0.2

The ejabberd 25.07 release notes mentioned that Erlang/OTP 28.0.1 was not yet fully supported because there was a problem with ACME support.

Good news! this problem with ACME is fixed and tested to work when using Erlang/OTP 28.0.2, the latest p1_acme library, and ejabberd 25.08.

If you are playing with ejabberd and Erlang/OTP 28, please report any problem you find. If you are running ejabberd in production, better stick with Erlang/OTP 27.3, this is the one used in installers and container images.

New mod_providers to serve XMPP Providers file

mod_providers is a new module to serve easily XMPP Providers files.

The standard way to perform this task is to first generate the Provider File, store in the disk with the proper name, and then serve the file using an HTTP server or mod_http_fileserver. And repeat this for each vhost.

Now this can be replaced with mod_providers, which automatically sets some values according to your configuration. Try configuring ejabberd like:

listen:
  -
    port: 443
    module: ejabberd_http
    tls: true
    request_handlers:
      /.well-known/xmpp-provider-v2.json: mod_providers

modules:
  mod_providers: {}

Check the URL https://localhost:443/.well-known/xmpp-provider-v2.json, and finetune it by setting a few mod_providers options.

Improved Unicode support in configuration

When using non-latin characters in a vhost served by ejabberd, you can write it in the configuration file as unicode, or using the IDNA/punycode. For example:

hosts:
  - localhost1
  - locälhost2
  - xn--loclhost4-x2a
  - 日本語

host_config:
  "locälhost2":
    modules:
      mod_disco: {}
      mod_muc:
        host: "conference3.@HOST@"
  "xn--loclhost4-x2a":
    modules:
      mod_disco: {}
      mod_muc:
        host: "conference4.@HOST@"

This raises a problem in mod_http_upload if the option put_url contains the @HOST@ keyword. In that case, please use the new predefined keyword HOST_URL_ENCODE.

This change was also applied to ejabberd.yml.example.

New option conversejs_plugins to enable OMEMO

mod_conversejs gets a new option conversejs_plugins that points to additional local files to include as scripts in the homepage.

Right now this is useful to enable OMEMO encryption.

Please make sure those files are available in the path specified in conversejs_resources option, in subdirectory plugins/. For example, copy a file to path /home/ejabberd/conversejs-x.y.z/package/dist/plugins/libsignal-protocol.min.js and then configure like:

modules:
  mod_conversejs:
    conversejs_resources: "/home/ejabberd/conversejs-x.y.z/package/dist"
    conversejs_plugins: ["libsignal-protocol.min.js"]

If you are using the public Converse client, then you can set \"libsignal\", which gets replaced with the URL of the public library. For example:

modules:
  mod_conversejs:
    conversejs_plugins: ["libsignal"]
    websocket_url: "ws://@HOST@:5280/websocket"

Easier erlang node name change with mnesia_change

ejabberd uses by default the distributed Mnesia database. Being distributed, Mnesia enforces consistency of its file, so it stores the Erlang node name, which may include the hostname of the computer.

When the erlang node name changes (which may happen when changing the computer name, or moving ejabberd to another computer), then mnesia refused to start with an error message like this:

2025-08-21 11:06:31.831594+02:00 [critical]
  Erlang node name mismatch:
  I'm running in node [ejabberd2@localhost],
  but the mnesia database is owned by [ejabberd@localhost]
2025-08-21 11:06:31.831782+02:00 [critical]
  Either set ERLANG_NODE in ejabberdctl.cfg
  or change node name in Mnesia

To change the computer hostname in the mnesia database, it was required to follow a tutorial with 10 steps that starts ejabberd a pair of times and runs the mnesia_change_nodename API command.

Well, now all this tutorial is implemented in one single command for the ejabberdctl command line script. When mnesia refuses to start due to an erlang node name change, it mentions that new solution:

$ echo "ERLANG_NODE=ejabberd2@localhost" >>_build/relive/conf/ejabberdctl.cfg

$ ejabberdctl live
2025-08-21 11:06:31.831594+02:00 [critical]
  Erlang node name mismatch:
  I'm running in node [ejabberd2@localhost],
  but the mnesia database is owned by [ejabberd@localhost]
2025-08-21 11:06:31.831782+02:00 [critical]
  Either set ERLANG_NODE in ejabberdctl.cfg
  or change node name in Mnesia by running:
  ejabberdctl mnesia_change ejabberd@localhost

Let's use the new command to change the erlang node name stored in the mnesia database:

$ ejabberdctl mnesia_change ejabberd@localhost

==> This changes your mnesia database from node name 'ejabberd@localhost' to 'ejabberd2@localhost'

...

==> Finished, now you can start ejabberd normally

Great! Now ejabberd can start correctly:

$ ejabberdctl live
...
2025-08-21 11:18:52.154718+02:00 [info]
  ejabberd 25.07.51 is started in the node ejabberd2@localhost in 1.77s

Notice that the command mnesia_change must start and stop ejabberd a pair of times. For that reason, it cannot be implemented as an API command. Instead, it is implemented as an ejabberdctl command directly in the ejabberdctl command line script.

Colorized interactive log

When ejabberd starts with an erlang shell using Mix, it prints error lines in a remarkable color: orange for warnings and red for errors. This helps to detect those lines when reading the log interactively.

Now this is also supported when using Rebar3. To test it, start ejabberd either:

  • ejabberdctl live: to start interactive mode with erlang shell
  • ejabberdctl foreground: to start in server mode with attached log output

You will see log lines colorized with:

  • green+white for informative log messages
  • grey for debug
  • yellow for warnings
  • red for errors
  • magenta for messages coming from other Erlang libraries (xmpp, OTP library), not ejabberd itself

Document API Tags in modules

Many ejabberd modules implement their own API commands, and now the documentation of those modules mention which tags contain their commands.

See for example at the end of modules mod_muc_admin, mod_private or mod_antispam.

Unfortunately, many early API commands were implemented in mod_admin_extra, which includes commands related to account management, vcard, roster, private, ... and consequently those are not mentioned in their corresponding modules documentation.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the contributions to the source code provided for this release by:

  • mod_matrix_gw: Don't send empty direct Matrix messages (thanks to snoopcatt) (#4420)
  • Holger Weiß for improvements in the installers, HTTP file upload and mod_register
  • marc0s for the improvement in MUC

And also to all the people contributing in the ejabberd chatroom, issue tracker...

Improvements in ejabberd Business Edition

Customers of the ejabberd Business Edition, in addition to all those improvements and bugfixes, also get the following changes:

New module mod_dedup

This module removes duplicates of read receipts sent by concurrent sessions of single user, this will prevent both delivery and storage in archive of duplicates.

Limits in mod_unread queries

Queries issued to mod_unread can now declare maximum number and age of returned results. This can also be tweaked with new options of that module.

ChangeLog

This is a more complete list of changes in this ejabberd release:

API Commands

  • ban_account: Run sm_kick_user event when kicking account (#4415)
  • ban_account: No need to change password (#4415)
  • mnesia_change: New command in ejabberdctl script that helps changing the mnesia node name

Configuration

  • Rename auth_password_types_hidden_in_scram1 option to auth_password_types_hidden_in_sasl1
  • econf: If a host in configuration is encoded IDNA, decode it (#3519)
  • ejabberd_config: New predefined keyword HOST_URL_ENCODE
  • ejabberd.yml.example: Use HOST_URL_ENCODE to handle case when vhost is non-latin1
  • mod_conversejs: Add option conversejs_plugins (#4413)
  • mod_matrix_gw: Add leave_timeout option (#4386)

Documentation and Tests

  • COMPILE.md: Mention dependencies and add link to Docs (#4431)
  • ejabberd_doc: Document commands tags for modules
  • CI: bump XMPP-Interop-Testing/xmpp-interop-tests-action (#4425)
  • Runtime: Raise the minimum Erlang tested to Erlang/OTP 24

Installers and Container

  • Bump Erlang/OTP version to 27.3.4.2
  • Bump OpenSSL version to 3.5.2
  • make-binaries: Disable Linux-PAM's logind support

Core and Modules

  • Bump p1_acme to fix 'AttributePKCS-10' and OTP 28 (processone/p1_acme#4)
  • Prevent loops in xml_compress:decode with corrupted data
  • ejabberd_auth_mnesia: Fix issue with filtering duplicates in get_users()
  • ejabberd_listener: Add secret in temporary unix domain socket path (#4422)
  • ejabberd_listener: Log error when cannot set definitive unix socket (#4422)
  • ejabberd_listener: Try to create provisional socket in final directory (#4422)
  • ejabberd_logger: Print log lines colorized in console when using rebar3
  • mod_conversejs: Ensure assets_path ends in / as required by Converse (#4414)
  • mod_conversejs: Ensure plugins URL is separated with / (#4413)
  • mod_http_upload: Encode URLs into IDNA when showing to XMPP client (#3519)
  • mod_matrix_gw: Add support for null values in is_canonical_json (#4421)
  • mod_matrix_gw: Don't send empty direct Matrix messages (#4420)
  • mod_matrix_gw: Matrix gateway updates
  • mod_muc: Report db failures when restoring rooms
  • mod_muc: Unsubscribe users from members-only rooms when expelled (#4412)
  • mod_providers: New module to serve easily XMPP Providers files
  • mod_register: Don't duplicate welcome subject and message
  • mod_scram_upgrade: Fix format of passwords updates
  • mod_scram_upgrade: Only offer upgrades to methods that aren't already stored

Full Changelog

https://github.com/processone/ejabberd/compare/25.07...25.08

ejabberd 25.08 download & feedback

As usual, the release is tagged in the Git source code repository on GitHub.

The source package and installers are available in ejabberd Downloads page. To check the *.asc signature files, see How to verify ProcessOne downloads integrity.

For convenience, there are alternative download locations like the ejabberd DEB/RPM Packages Repository and the GitHub Release / Tags.

The ecs container image is available in docker.io/ejabberd/ecs and ghcr.io/processone/ecs. The alternative ejabberd container image is available in ghcr.io/processone/ejabberd.

If you consider that you've found a bug, please search or fill a bug report on GitHub Issues.

Written by Jérôme Sautret

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