Push notification in iPhone from outside XMPP server - iphone

I create application and i want to use push notification in it. But application use outside servers (i nave not access to config this servers), e.g. XMPP server(xmpp.org, jabber.org etc.).
As i understand from apple documentation, for get notification, i must send notification with token to APNS from server (my server). Isn't it? How i can send notification from outside server?
I know it is possible, for example IM+.

its not possible to create it without sending notifications to apple server... but if you think out of the box you can create a layer with your own server which will act like a mediator between your app and your outside server. now you have control over this mediator server here you can send message to apple server to send push notifications to server..

Related

Ejabberd Message delivery while application is terminated

I am developing a chat app using ejabberd server for both IOS and Android. I also wrote a module for ejabberd to get the offline messages sent to my own server api .
my own server api will send notifications to the IOS/Android platforms using FCM.
On the client side , if the application is in the foreground or the background , it will stay connected to ejabberd and if the client receives the message then ejabberd will send the message delivery status.
I am facing an issue while the app is terminated ( service is not running ) which means it is not connected to ejabberd (offline) . if i send a message to this app while it is not terminated , it will receive a notification but the message still undelivered . how can mark the messages as delivered when receiving the notification while the app is terminated.
to explain it more , the same functionality is working fine with whatsapp :
device A has whatsapp installed and whatsapp was turned off (terminated)
Device B has whatsapp running
Device B sends a message to device A
Device A receives a whatsapp notification
Without doing anything on Device A , the message status on Device B is marked as delivered .
How can I implement this scenario with ejabberd ?
In case someone went into this issue , here is the solution that I implemented with help of #Mickaël Rémond from his answer.
I configured ejabberd to send the offline messages to an http service ( your own server) please refer to this link for further on how to do it
your server should catch the above call and generate a notification message (FCM ) in my case and send it to recipient device
recipient device will catch the notification which includes the message
recipient device will call http service (your own server backend)that responsible for sending the deliver ack to the original sender . you need to pass from, to , stanzaId , vhost with this call
backend server will use ejabberd-api (set of exposed apis to manage ejabberd through rest apis calls) to send delivery message using this api
please note the following notes also :
sending the delivery message from your own server to ejabberd will not delete them from ejabberd database
if the user re-connected to the ejabberd server then the recipient will receive the message again from ejabberd .
It is probably too complex for a simple Stack Overflow question, as you need to integrate several moving part on client and server:
You need to execute code in background when receiving push notifications on iOS (you need that property set on your app in your app provisioning profile and have code to handle that). The client will initiate an HTTPS query to let the server know that the message was delivered.
You need to have an endpoint that will get the delivered HTTPS calls and generate either a message ack or a chat marker on behalf of the user and route it in ejabberd.
In real world, this is not enough if you want to take into account the fact that you can only have 1 push in the queue on APNS. If you have several messages sent while the device is not on the network, you will need to have the device check all received messages while offline on the server, otherwise you will lose messaging.
You need to rely on XMPP Message Archive Management (MAM) to handle that history.
As you see, this is not a simple few tens of line of codes but need real design and involved work.

Notify Firebase app server of messages between devices

Is it possible to configure Firebase app server to receive notification when there are messages exchanged between two other devices over Firebase Cloud Messaging?
So for instance I want to save these messages via my app server to the database. Currently I do it with additional REST request when I receive message on target phone.
However I want to avoid two jobs on target devices(listening/receiving the message and sending a request to save it) I'm thinking there must be an option where User sends a message from their phone and it not only arrives at target device but also notifies server?
There is no way to register your own observer that hooks in to Firebase Cloud Messaging's message sending mechanism.
There is also no capability to send messages directly from one device to another. There is always a piece of code that you deploy to a trusted environment (e.g. an app server of Cloud Functions) involved in sending so-called downstream messages to devices.
Two approaches that may accomplish the same need are:
Implement an XMPP server that sits between the devices sending messages and the FCM server that delivers messages to devices
Implement an intermediate service where the devices send the message, which then in turn calls FCM. This is a more generic approach of the previous one and is described in this blog post and in this use-case in the Cloud Functions for Firebase documentation.

Refreshing firebase when in background

I am currently making an app where users can send messages to their counselors at camp, without releasing their phone numbers. If the user sends a message, how can I check on the counselors app if they received a message, and if so, display a push notification, even if the app is in the background.
You will need to use Apple Push Notification Service (APNS).
To do this you will need a BaaS server with some PHP code and certificates to access Apple's servers. Each device authenticates to the APNS server when the app is loaded and provided a key. Then the device sending a message will send a request to your server and the server will process the data through Apple to whichever remote tokens you have specified in the payload.
Great write up here... https://blog.serverdensity.com/how-to-build-an-apple-push-notification-provider-server-tutorial/

Sending msg to iOS app from server manually

I'm kind of starting programmer and on Objective-C. So I want to make an app for iOS that receives messages from a server. These messages are inputed manually, and send to all iOS connected to the server. People connected will receive a Push Notification, if they aren't connected to internet they will receive when they do and run the app.
So my question is: do I need to use a server to do this (sending messages for multiple iPhones)? In case of yes, with is the best server? TCP/socket?
If your only purpose behind using is to send push notifictaion message, then you dont need to spend on that. There are some service providers available which allow you to send notification from there website. for ex: you can use urbanairship. You need to register device token from your Xcode project using their SDK, and then you can send notification from their website.
Thanks!

iPhone Push notificaton

Is it possible send push notification without server side?
For example my device cominicates with apns directly without server?
While technically it is possible, it isn't something you would want to do.
You would have to embed your certificate inside your app. This would be a BadThing. Anyone who wanted to could then extract your certificate and start sending push notifications pretending to be you.
The apns is only there to push notifications out to the devices. It isn't a two-way communication thing other than the devices register with it. Once they have registered, the apns sends messages when you request them.
If you don't want to write your own server, there are others available that are already written like the excellent (I don't work for them - just a happy user) Urban Airship.