As many probably already know, the iChat server introduced in 10.4 is based on Jabber and uses the XMPP protocol. This makes it possbible for the server to act not only as a standalone instant messaging server, but also as a gateway between many different protocols.
In this 9 page howto article (450kB PDF), you can find out more about how it all works with specific instructions on making the iChat server work with arguably the most popular IM network, MSN.
by 
On the other side of the coin, when you want to remove functionality, not
extend it. What then? I removed MSN Messenger from all the machines and I
thought that would be that. Well, wasn’t I surprised when they accessed their
MSN accounts through a 3rd party jabber account… Can’t shut the chat down.
Craftiness is its own reward. 😉
—
Mat X – Mac VFX SysAdmin
Well, you could deny connections on TCP port 1863 in your firewall? Of course that would still make it possible to use things like webmessanger which then you could then block by address?
… just some ideas.
—
-filipp
Hi,
Thanks for the tutorial – really helpful, but I am having a few problems that
maybe u can help with… After going through the the tutorial, I opened up Psi
and selected service descovery. When i right-click on the msn transport, the
register button is greyed out and I can’t select it.
I have gone through the config files etc. and can’t spot anything out of place.
When installing twisted I did get an error message about gcc failing with ‘exit
status 1’, but my inexperience with python can’t shed any light as i don’t
know how to verify the install.
Could this be a problem with twisted or any of the other components or do
you think it is something wrong with pymsnt itself- could u offer any help?!
thanks!
Hi, thanks for the link to the pdf.
I followed the document and installed all the dependencies.
When I manualy launch pymsnt.py, I have the folowing error :
/usr/local/pymsnt-0.11.2/PyMSNt.py &
[1] 16651
mail:/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/
python2.3/site-packages/twisted/internet admin$ /System/Library/
Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/python2.3/site-packages/
twisted/internet/default.py:16: DeprecationWarning: twisted.internet.default
is deprecated. Use posixbase or selectreactor instead.
warnings.warn(“twisted.internet.default is deprecated. Use posixbase or
selectreactor instead.”, category=DeprecationWarning)
Unable to find a reactor. Please make sure you have Twisted properly
installed.
Exiting…
I googled for the error but found no solution at all.
Anybody’s got an idea ?
Did You run the Twisted installer *twice*, as it says in the howto? If you don’t, PyMSNt won’t be able to find certain components and will give that error. Did You also install the same version that was specified in the article?
—
-filipp
Yes I did …
I will do it again