Hiawatha: Hisser

After checking who @hiawatha_ws is following on twitter, because I often get to know new things by doing so, I saw Hisser, which looks like its made from Hugo Leisink aswell.
Being the experimental person I am, I wanted to give it a try.

I tested it for several hours, I like the simplicity and security of the chat solution equally.

Download is found here and the Installation is as easy as possible.

For Hiawatha users:
UrlToolkit {
ToolkitID = banshee
RequestURI isfile Return
Match ^/(css|files|images|js)($|/) Return
Match ^/(favicon.ico|robots.txt)$ Return
Match .*\?(.*) Rewrite /index.php?$1
Match .* Rewrite /index.php
}
and add
UseToolkit = banshee
to the VirtualHost running the Hisser server.
Lead the WebsiteRoot to the public folder inside the Hisser server.

Change settings inside hisser/settings/website.conf ,
set DEBUG_MODE to no when everything works (or just now, because it will work), don’t forget that.
and set the following to your needs, the script will create it all and install the database for you, so don’t create it yourself.
# Database settings
#
DB_HOSTNAME = localhost
DB_DATABASE = yourdb
DB_USERNAME = youruser
DB_PASSWORD = yourpw

I installed the database and logged into profile,
well I at least tried. It kept telling me wrong password, but I’ve seen admin:banshee as default combination.
Didn’t work for some reason, so I went into phpMyAdmin, into the hisser db, and into the users table.
There, I’ve set username, full name and mail address and used the lost password function to gain control over the admin account.

After doing that, you can use the server.
Unfortunately, there is no comfortable way to use it, YET.
There is a Hisser command line client (PHP), and from the look of the page, android and iphone apps are planned.
Want to use the cli php version?
Use this chain of commands, make sure to edit it to the directory where you want it:
apt-get install php5-sqlite -y && wget http://hisser.eu/files/hisser-php-0.2.tar.gz && tar xvfz hisser-php-0.2.tar.gz && mv hisser /whereever-you-want-it/hisser && cd /wherever-you-want-it/hisser && ./initdb
The initdb scripts asks for the following:
- Hostname of Hisser server:
- Your full name:
- Your username at server:
- Your password:
If everything is correct, this appears:
Generating RSA key pair.
Generating device identifier.
Registering device identifier.

You can now use the ./hisser file for further options, which are
Usage: ./hisser
Commands: contacts: Show contact list.
delete : Delete message from database.
fetch: Fetch messages from inbox.
inbox: Show overview of messages in inbox.
index: Show index of messages in database.
invite : Invite other user.
myhash: show my hash for validation.
read : Read message.
send : Send message to other user.
uninvite : Remove user.
validate : Validate user in contact list.

I’m loving it, trying to get the status of being the first recognized german hisser server at 5zs.de. Just need some way to allow public registration ;).

Can’t wait for a smartphone app, that would surely skyrocket the popularity.

When it’s true, and it’s well crypted so noone knows whats in the message, where it comes from nor where it goes to, it’s much more appreciated than apps like WhatsApp in my eyes.




From my Hiawatha article series