source: protocols/skype/README @ f9258ae

= Skype plugin for BitlBee
Miklos Vajna <vmiklos-at-vmiklos-dot-hu>

== Status

[quote, Wilmer van der Gaast (author of BitlBee)]
____
Okay, this exists now, with lots of thanks to vmiklos for his *excellent*
work!!

It's not in the main BitlBee and it'll never be for various reasons, but
because it's a plugin that shouldn't be a problem.
____

One day I browsed the BitlBee bugtracker and found
http://bugs.bitlbee.org/bitlbee/ticket/82[this] ticket. Then after a while I
returned and saw that it was still open. So I wrote it.

It's pretty stable (one day I wanted to restart it because of an upgrade
and just noticed it was running for 2+ months without crashing), I use
it for my daily work. Being a plug-in, no patching is required, you can
just install it after installing BitlBee itself.

NOTE: You will see that this implementation of the Skype plug-in still requires
a Skype instance to be running. This is because I'm not motivated to reverse
engineer Skype's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_Protocol#Obfuscation_Layer[obfuscation
layer]. (Not mentioning that you should ask your lawyer about if it is legal or
not..)

== Requirements

* Skype >= 1.4.0.99. The latest version I've tested is 2.1.0.81.
* BitlBee >= 3.0. The latest version I've tested is @BITLBEE_VERSION@. Use
  old versions (see the NEWS file about which one) if you have older BitlBee
  installed.
* Skype4Py >= 0.9.28.7. Previous versions won't work due to API changes.
  The latest version I've tested is 1.0.32.0.

* Python >= 2.5. Skype4Py does not work with 2.4.

* OS: `bitlbee-skype` has been tested under Linux and Mac OS X. The plugin part
  has been tested under Free/Open/NetBSD as well. The daemon part has been
  tested on Windows, too.

== How to set it up

Before you start. The setup is the following: BitlBee can't connect directly to
Skype servers (the company's ones). It needs a running Skype client to do so.
In fact BitlBee will connect to `skyped` (a tcp server, provided in this
package) and `skyped` will connect to to your Skype client.

The benefit of this architecture is that you can run Skype and `skyped`
on a machine different to the one where you run BitlBee (it can be even
a public server) and/or your IRC client.

NOTE: The order is important. First `skyped` starts Skype. Then `skyped`
connects to Skype, finally BitlBee can connect to `skyped`.

=== Installing under Frugalware or Debian

- Install the necessary packages:

----
# pacman-g2 -S bitlbee-skype
----

or

----
# apt-get install skyped bitlbee-plugin-skype
----

(the later from the unstable repo)

and you don't have to compile anything manually.

=== Installing under OS X

- Install the necessary packages from ports:

NOTE: You have to edit the Portfile manually to include the install-dev target,
just append install-dev after install-etc.

----
# port -v install bitlbee
----

and you have to install `bitlbee-skype` and `skype4py` from
source.

=== Installing from source

NOTE: bitlbee-skype by default builds and installs skyped and the
plugin. In case you just want to install the plugin for a public server
or you want to use skyped with a public server (like
`bitlbee1.asnetinc.net`), you don't need both.

- You need the latest stable BitlBee release (unless you want to use a
  public server):

----
$ wget http://get.bitlbee.org/src/bitlbee-@BITLBEE_VERSION@.tar.gz
$ tar xf bitlbee-@BITLBEE_VERSION@.tar.gz
$ cd bitlbee-@BITLBEE_VERSION@
----

- Now compile and install it:

----
$ ./configure
$ make
# make install install-dev
----

- To install http://skype4py.sourceforge.net/[Skype4Py] from source
  (unless you want to install the plugin for a public server):

----
$ tar -zxvf Skype4Py-x.x.x.x.tar.gz
$ cd Skype4Py-x.x.x.x
# python setup.py install
----

- Get the plugin code (in an empty dir, or whereever you want, it does
  not matter):

----
$ wget http://vmiklos.hu/project/bitlbee-skype/bitlbee-skype-@VERSION@.tar.gz
$ tar xf bitlbee-skype-@VERSION@.tar.gz
$ cd bitlbee-skype-@VERSION@
----

- Compile and install it:

----
$ ./configure
$ make
# make install
----

This will install the plugin to where BitlBee expects them, which is
`/usr/local/lib/bitlbee` if you installed BitlBee from source.

=== Configuring

- Set up `~/.skyped/skyped.conf`: Create the `~/.skyped` directory, copy
  `skyped.conf` and `skyped.cnf` from
  `/usr/local/etc/skyped/skyped.conf` to `~/.skyped`, adjust `username`
  and `password`. The `username` should be your Skype login and the
  `password` can be whatever you want, but you will have to specify that
  one when adding the Skype account to BitlBee (see later).

NOTE: Here, and later - `/usr/local/etc` can be different on your installation
if you used the `--sysconfdir` switch when running bitlbee-skype's `configure`.

- Generate the SSL pem files:

----
# cd ~/.skyped
# openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -nodes -config skyped.cnf -out skyped.cert.pem \
        -keyout skyped.key.pem
----

NOTE: Maybe you want to adjust the permissions in the `~/.skyped`
dir. For example make it readable by just your user.

- Start `skyped` (the tcp server):

----
$ skyped
----

- Start your `IRC` client, connect to BitlBee and add your account:

----
account add skype <user> <pass>
account skype set server localhost
----

<user> should be your Skype account name, <pass> should be the one you declared
in `skyped.conf`. If you want to run skyped on a remote machine, replace
`localhost` with the name of the machine.

If you are running skyped on a custom port:

----
account skype set port <port>
----

If you want to set your full name (optional):

----
account skype set display_name "John Smith"
----

If you want to see your skypeout contacts online as well (they are
offline by default):

----
account skype set skypeout_offline false
----

== Setting up Skype in a VNC server (optional)

Optionally, if you want to run Skype on a server, you might want to setup up
a `VNC` server as well. I used `tightvnc` but probably other `VNC` servers will
work, too.

First run

----
$ vncpasswd ~/.vnc/passwd
----

and create a password. You will need it at least once.

Now create `~/.vnc/xstartup` with the following contents:

----
#!/bin/sh

blackbox
----

Adjust the permissions:

----
$ chmod +x ~/.vnc/xstartup
----

Then start the server:

----
$ vncserver
----

Then connect to it, start an `xterm`, set up Skype (username, password,
enable X11 API and allow the `Skype4Py` client), quit from Skype, and
start `skyped`. If you want to watch its traffic, enable debug messages
and foreground mode:

----
$ skyped -n -d
----

== Features

- Download nicks and away statuses from Skype

- Noticing joins / parts while we're connected

- Sending messages

- Receiving messages

- Receiving away status changes

- `skyped` (the tcp daemon that is a gateway between Skype and tcp)

- Error handling when `skyped` is not running and when it exits

- Marking received messages as seen so that Skype won't say there are unread messages

- Adding / removing contacts

- Set away state when you do a `/away`.

- When you `account off`, Skype will set status to `Offline`

- When you `account on`, Skype will set status to `Online`

- Detect when somebody wants to add you and ask for confirmation

- Detect when somebody wants to transfer a file

- Group chat support:

  * Detect if we're invited

  * Send / receive group chat messages

  * Invite others (using `/invite <nick>`)

  * Part from group chats

  * Starting a group chat (using `/j #nick`)

- Topic changes in group chats:

  * Show the current topic (if any) on join

  * Notice when someone changes the topic

  * Support changing the topic using `/topic`

- Viewing the profile using the `info` command.

- Handling skype actions (when the `CHATMESSAGE` has `EMOTED` type)

- Setting your display name using the `nick` command.

- Running Skype on a machine different to BitlBee is possible, the
  communication is encrypted.

- Managing outgoing calls (with call duration at the end):

  * `/ctcp nick call`
  * `/ctcp nick hangup`

- Managing outgoing SkypeOut or conference calls:

  * `account skype set call +18005551234`
  * `account skype set call nick1 nick2`
  * `account skype set -del call`

- Managing incoming calls via questions, just like when you add / remove
  contacts.

- Querying the current SkypeOut balance:

  * `account skype set balance query`

- For debug purposes, it's possible to send any command to `skyped`. To
  achieve this, you need to:

  * `account skype set skypeconsole true`

  * then writing `skypeconsole: <command>` will work in the control
    channel.

  * `account skype set skypeconsole_receive true` will make the
    `skypeconsole` account dump all the recieved raw traffic for you

- If you want to automatically join bookmarked groupchats right after
  you logged in, do:

  * `account skype set auto_join true`

- Edited messages are shown with the `EDIT:` prefix. If you don't like
  this, you can set your own prefix using:

  * `account skype set edit_prefix "updated message:"`

- The `echo123` test account is hidden by default. If you want to see it:

  * `account skype set test_join true`

- Mood texts are not shown by default. If you want to see it:

  * `account skype set show_moods true`

- Group support:

  * Skype groups are told to BitlBee
  * The usual `/invite` in a group channel adds the buddy to the group in skype
    as well (and if necessary, it creates a new group in Skype)

== What needs to be done (aka. TODO)

- Notice if foo invites bar. Currently you can see only that bar joined.

- Public chats. See
  link:https://developer.skype.com/jira/browse/SCL-381[this feature
  request], this is because it is still not possible (under Linux) to
  `join_chat` to a public chat..

- Add yasrd (Yet Another Skype-Related Daemon) to allow using a public
  server for users who are behind NAT.

== I would like to have support for ...

If something does not work and it's not in the TODO section, then please
contact me! Please also try the link:HACKING[git version] before reporting a bug, your
problem may be already fixed there.

In fact, of course, I wrote this documentation after figured out how to do this
setup, so maybe I left out some steps. If you needed 'any' additional tricks,
then it would be nice to include them here.

== Known bugs

- File transfers are view-only from BitlBee. Quoting the
  https://developer.skype.com/Docs/ApiDoc/FILETRANSFER_object[relevant
  documentation]: 'File transfers cannot be initiated nor accepted via
  API commands.' So it's not something I can add support for, sadly.

== Screenshots

You can reach some screenshots link:shot[here].

== Additional resources

You can reach the Changelog link:Changelog[here], and a gitweb interface
http://vmiklos.hu/gitweb/?p=bitlbee-skype.git[here].

The Skype API documentation is
http://developer.skype.com/resources/public_api_ref.zip[here] if you're
interested.

== Testimonials

----
00:56 < scathe> I like your skype plugin :)
----

----
It's really working great so far.

Good Job and thank you!
Sebastian
----

----
Big respect for your work, i really appreciate it.

Martin
----

----
Thanks for bitlbee-skype. As a blind Linux user, I cannot use the
skype GUI client because qt apps ar not accessible yet with the
available screen readers. bitlbee-skype allows me to make use of skype
without having to interact much with the GUI client, which helps me a
lot.

Lukas
----

----
02:12 < newton> i must say, i love this little bee ;)
02:15 < newton> tried it out today with the skype plugin, good work!
----

----
18:10 < miCSu> it works fine
----

----
13:56 < seo> i just want to thank you :)
13:56 < seo> for bitlbee-skype
13:57 < seo> it's working very well, so, again, thank you for your work, and for sharing it
----

----
22:16 < ecraven> vmiklos: thanks a lot for the skype plugin for bitlbee!
----

----
I'm blind and so I have to use a screen reader, in my case Gnome-Orca.
But since Skype is written in QT, while Orca uses gtk+, I have no direct
access to the Skype interface. That's why I desided to use Skyped and
Erc.
The text console is fully accessible.
Thank you very much.

Hermann
----

----
i love that bitlbeeplugin. big thx for that.

michael
----

----
23:47 < krisfremen> thanks for creating this fabulous piece of software vmiklos :)
----

== Thanks

to the following people:

* people in link:AUTHORS[AUTHORS] for their contributions

* Arkadiusz Wahlig, author of skype4py, for making suggestions to skyped

* Gabor Adam Toth (tg), for noticing extra code is needed to handle multiline
  messages

* Cristobal Palmer (tarheelcoxn), for helping to testing the plugin in a
  timezone different to mine

* people on `#bitlbee` for feedback

Back to my link:/projects[projects page].

// vim: ft=asciidoc