title: Does Openfire Support TLS Over Http-Bind? If not whats the alternative
body: <p>I apologize in advance for the somewhat long windedness of this question but I feel that I need to provide some additional information in order to properly qualify my current predicament.    </p>
  
  <p><strong>Background</strong></p>
  
  <p>Okay so in many ways this question is a follow up to a <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6308765/good-c-xmpp-library-supporting-group-chat-and-tls-or-ssl-encryption">previous question I asked regarding TLS/SSL encryption for XMPP communication and which libraries were the best.</a>  At first I resigned myself to using only .net libraries that used TLS/SSL but have since expanded to include Java libraries as also being a suitable alternative and have attempted a simple implementation of the Smack API as well.  After exhaustive (and largely misguided) research regarding TLS/SSL encryption I realized that when Openfire is properly configured to block non-secure connections, most XMPP clients when connecting to Openfire will simply auto-negotiated TLS encrypted communications and that as long as I controlled the user roster on the server side (i.e. disable users abilities to create new accounts from any client) that I could more or less create secure end-to-end XMPP collaboration through Openfire.        </p>
  
  <p><strong>The New Problem</strong></p>
  
  <p>Once I got the previous issues settled, I attempted to use this method for secure communication over HTTP-binding via Openfire's HTTP-binding functionality and ports.  The reason for this is because our implementation will require users to connect to our Openfire server from additional networks.  Additionally, and perhaps obviously, we will have no control over how these users firewalls will be configured to allow outgoing socket connections over port 5222 and whats more due to the nature of the system we are implementing it is highly unlikely that any of our clients will be willing/allowed to open their firewall to establish a socket connection to our XMPP server.  </p>
  
  <p>The issue is due to the fact that Openfire's Http-Bind does not appear to support auto TLS and instead only supports (as Openfire puts it) the 'Old SSL' method of encryption.  <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6601801/xmpp-over-http-or-over-socket/6626430#6626430">This and other Openfire Socket vs Http are discussed in another question here, although not yet at great length</a>    </p>
  
  <p><strong>The Question (Finally)</strong>   </p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><p>First, can anyone confirm that
  Http-Bind through Openfire actually
  does not support auto TLS?  </p></li>
  <li><p>Second, does the Smack API support
  Http-Bind?  There is an <a href="http://issues.igniterealtime.org/browse/SMACK-187" rel="nofollow noreferrer">existing
  ticket</a> on Ignite realtime's
  website that seems to state that it
  is not supported however the ticket
  was created in 2007 and its last
  comment from June 2011 that asks if
  any update has been made on this
  feature has as of yet gone
  unanswered.  </p></li>
  <li><p>Third, it seems as though my last
  resort to achieve secure
  communication using Openfire and
  Http-bind would be to use the 'Old
  SSL' method however this does not
  seem like a good long term solution. 
  Also, the Openfire forums and other
  various rumor mills have indicated
  that SSL functionality will be
  deprecated in future Openfire
  releases (can anyone give credence to
  this rumor).  All that being said, is
  SSL my only real alternative to
  secure connection using Http-bind.</p></li>
  </ul>