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Zephyr Mirroring for Zulip

Thanks for giving Zulip a try! This page describes how to use Zulip with MIT Zephyr; if you're not a current Zephyr user, you probably want to visit the main Zulip website.

There are a few steps you need to take to setup Zulip for your MIT Zephyr account.

First time setup

  1. Create a password and activate your account using the URL in your email.

  2. Get your API key from the "Settings" panel and put it in a file in your Athena home directory called ~/Private/.humbug-api-key.

  3. Copy over your Zephyr subscriptions

    If you would like to copy over all of your subscriptions, please run the following command:
    /mit/tabbott/humbug/zephyr_mirror.py --sync-subscriptions

    NOTE: Zulip does not fully support the equivalent of Barnowl filters. If you have too many subscriptions (you know who you are), you may want to either manually subscribe to just your main barnowl view or make extensive use of the "Not in home view" option on streams. You can add or remove subscriptions from the Zulip app (or your Zulip home view) by clicking the gear in the upper right-hand corner and then selecting "Streams."

Running the Zephyr Mirror script

On an Athena dialup (linerva.mit.edu, athena.dialup.mit.edu, etc.), run the Zephyr mirroring script inside a screen session.

IMPORTANT: You must keep the Zephyr mirroring script always running in a session with unexpired Kerberos tickets. The script forwards personals you receive on Zephyr to Zulip, and forwards messages you send in Zulip to Zephyr. If it is not running, only other Zulip users will receive messages you send from Zulip!. The Zulip web application will warn you if the Zephyr mirroring script is not running.

If you already have Barnowl running in screen/tmux somewhere, you can just run:

/mit/tabbott/humbug/zephyr_mirror.py

inside that screen session.

Mirroring without a Barnowl session

If you are not already running a screen/tmux for Barnowl, you can setup a screen session to run the Zephyr mirroring script by running the following on a dialup such as linerva.mit.edu:

  1. kinit -l7d && aklog
  2. (Type your password to create 7-day renewable Kerberos tickets)
  3. env ZEPHYR_SCREEN_CLIENT=/mit/tabbott/humbug/zephyr_mirror.py SCREEN_SESSION_NAME=humbug athrun kchen owl-screen

This will run the Zephyr Mirroring script inside a screen session, and use `/mit/kchen/bin/cont-renew-notify` to continually renew your Kerberos tickets for up to a week; each week, it will send you a Zephyr/Zulip letting you know that you need to renew your tickets. To do so, login to the server that you setup the screen session on and use the following procedure:

  1. Run screen -x humbug to connect to the mirroring screen session created above.
  2. The first time, you'll need to type ctrl-a c to switch to a new terminal in your screen session.
  3. kinit -l7d && aklog
  4. (Type type your password to renew your Kerberos tickets).

Don't run multiple copies of the Zephyr mirroring script; doing so will result in messages you sent being forwarded to Zephyr twice.

Using the app

You can always use our webapp by visiting https://zulip.com, though you might also like to try our desktop and mobile apps.

Feel free to send us a message via the Feedback button under the gear tab within the app if you have any questions or encounter any problems.

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