DNS

A common question is whether a DNS entry is required for subdomains like this. The answer depends on whether you want users on other servers to access the service. Users connected to your Prosody instance do not need a DNS entry for the subdomain, because Prosody already knows about the service.

If you want users on other servers to find your chat service, you will need a DNS entry to point them in the right direction. We have a whole article on DNS in XMPP to help you set that up.

Discovery

Clients usually find where chatroom are hosted by asking their VirtualHost about what services are listed. If the chatroom component is named as a sub-domain of the VirtualHost, it is automatically made discoverable. To add components or hosts other than sub-domains, they can be added with the disco_items option,"see mod_disco.

Creating rooms

To create a room simply join it with your client - you will become the owner of that room and, if your client supports it, can configure the room and add other owners/admins.

If you want to restrict room creation to server admins defined in the Prosody config, add the restrict_room_creation option:

    Component "conference.example.com" "muc"
        restrict_room_creation = true

You can also set the option to "local" (quotes included), this restricts the creation of rooms to users on the main domain only (e.g. example.com in this case).

Room configuration

If you are the owner of a room (for example if you just created it) then you can configure the room options via your client, if it supports it. Usually the configuration dialog is accessed via a menu or a command (some clients, such as Pidgin and Adium, use /config).