Users and groups use Mac OS X Server iChat service to interact via chat from a secure server.
To use iChat service on a Mac OS X Server, users must be defined in the directories the server uses to authenticate. The iChat server uses SSL to provide for privacy of the chat data stream. It is based on the Jabber/XXMP protocol. Jabber is an open-source protocol that runs on a variety of operating systems. The iChat service is compatible with instant messaging applications from Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and popular PDAs that work with the Jabber protocol.