source: skype/README @ 833eaee

Last change on this file since 833eaee was 833eaee, checked in by Miklos Vajna <vmiklos@…>, at 2008-02-23T02:17:06Z

doc update: manual start of skype no longer necessary

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1= Skype plugin for BitlBee
2Miklos Vajna <vmiklos@vmiklos.hu>
3
4== Status
5
6[Wilmer van der Gaast (author of BitlBee)]
7____
8Okay, this exists now, with lots of thanks to vmiklos for his *excellent*
9work!!
10
11It's not in the main BitlBee and it'll never be for various reasons, but
12because it's a plugin that shouldn't be a problem.
13____
14
15One day I browsed the BitlBee bugtracker and found
16http://bugs.bitlbee.org/bitlbee/ticket/82[this] ticket. Then after a while I
17returned and saw that it was still open. So I wrote it.
18
19It's pretty stable, I use it for my daily work. Being a plug-in, no patching
20is required, you can just install it after installing BitlBee itself.
21
22NOTE: You will see that this implementation of the Skype plug-in still requires
23a Skype instance to be running. This is because I'm not motivated to reverse
24engineer Skype's
25http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_Protocol#Obfuscation_Layer[obfuscation
26layer]. (Not mentioning that you should ask your lawyer about if it is legal or
27not..)
28
29== Requirements
30
31* Skype >= 1.4.0.99. The latest version I've tested is 2.0.0.27.
32* bitlbee >= 1.1.1dev. (This is the latest version I've tested, probably
33  newer versions will work, too.)
34* Skype4Py >= 0.9.28.7. Previous versions won't work due to API changes.
35* Python >= 2.5. Skype4Py does not work with 2.4.
36* pygobject
37
38`bitlbee-skype` has been tested under Linux and Windows. Skype is available
39under OSX, too, so it probably works, but this has not been tested.
40
41== How to set it up
42
43Before you start. The setup is the following: BitlBee can't connect directly to
44Skype servers (the company's ones). It needs a running Skype client to do so.
45In fact BitlBee will connect to `skyped` (a tcp server, provided in this
46package) and `skyped` will connect to to your Skype client.
47
48NOTE: The order is important. First `skyped` starts Skype. Then `skyped` can
49connect to Skype, finally BitlBee can connect to `skyped`.
50
51- If you happen to be a happy Frugalware user, you can install the `bitlbee`
52  and `bitlbee-skype` packages from
53  http://ftp.frugalware.org/pub/other/people/vmiklos/bmf/[my repo].
54
55- You need the BitlBee testing/development version:
56
57----
58$ wget http://get.bitlbee.org/src/bitlbee-1.1.1dev.tar.gz
59$ tar xf bitlbee-1.1.1dev.tar.gz
60$ cd bitlbee-1.1.1dev
61----
62
63NOTE: You no longer need additional patches, as of version 1.1.1dev.
64
65- Now compile and install it:
66
67----
68$ ./configure
69$ make
70# make install install-dev
71----
72
73- Get the plugin code:
74
75----
76$ wget http://vmiklos.hu/project/bitlbee-skype/bitlbee-skype-@VERSION@.tar.gz
77$ tar xf bitlbee-skype-@VERSION@.tar.gz
78$ cd bitlbee-skype-@VERSION@
79----
80
81It doesn't matter where do you get it, it'll install the plugin to `/usr/local`
82by default (that's the location where BitlBee searches for plugins by default).
83
84- Compile and install it:
85
86----
87$ ./configure
88$ make
89# make install
90----
91
92- Install http://skype4py.sourceforge.net/[Skype4Py].
93
94(You may remember that previous versions of `skyped` did not require this
95package. This because it now uses the X11 interface of Skype (because the
96previously used `DBus` interface had
97http://forum.skype.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=94545&view=findpost&p=431710[known
98problems]), but I wanted to prevent a large code duplication from that project.
99In addition it then no longer requires the `dbus-python` package, just
100`pygobject`.)
101
102- Edit `/usr/local/etc/skyped/skyped.conf`: adjust `username` and `password`. The
103  `username` should be your Skype login and the `password` can be whatever you
104  want, but you will have to specify that one when adding the Skype account to
105  BitlBee (see later).
106
107NOTE: Here, and later - `/usr/local/etc` can be different on your installation
108if you used the `--sysconfdir` switch when running bitlbee-skype's `configure`.
109
110- Generate the SSL pem files:
111
112----
113# cd /usr/local/etc/skyped
114# openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -nodes -config skyped.cnf -out skyped.cert.pem \
115        -keyout skyped.key.pem
116----
117
118NOTE: Maybe you want to adjust the permissions in the `/usr/local/etc/skyped`
119dir. For example make it readable by just your user.
120
121- Start `skyped` (the tcp server):
122
123----
124$ skyped
125----
126
127- Start your `IRC` client, connect to BitlBee and add your account:
128
129----
130account add skype <user> <pass> localhost
131----
132
133<user> should be your Skype account name, <pass> should be the one you declared
134in `skyped.conf`. If you want to run skyped on a remote machine, replace
135`localhost` with the name of the machine.
136
137== Setting up Skype in a VNC server (optional)
138
139Optionally, if you want to run Skype on a server, you might want to setup up
140a `VNC` server as well. I used `tightvnc` but probably other `VNC` servers will
141work, too.
142
143First run
144
145----
146$ vncpasswd ~/.vnc/passwd
147----
148
149and create a password. You will need it at least once.
150
151Now create `~/.vnc/xstartup` with the following contents:
152
153----
154#!/bin/sh
155
156sleep 1
157skyped
158----
159
160Adjust the permissions:
161
162----
163$ chmod +x ~/.vnc/xstartup
164----
165
166Then start the server:
167
168----
169$ vncserver
170----
171
172Then connect to it, and set up Skype (username, password, enable auto-login, and
173allow the `SkypeApiPythonShell` client when Skype asks about it).
174
175Please be aware about that Skype has serious memory leak issues. After running
176with for a few weeks it may eat >300 MB of memory. Just don't forget to restart
177your VNC server regularly. (How ugly.)
178
179== What works
180
181- Download nicks and away statuses from Skype
182
183- Noticing joins / parts while we're connected
184
185- Sending messages
186
187- Receiving messages
188
189- Receiving away status changes
190
191- `skyped` (the tcp daemon that is a gateway between Skype and tcp)
192
193- Error handling when `skyped` is not running and when it exits
194
195- Marking received messages as seen so that Skype won't say there are unread messages
196
197- Adding / removing contacts
198
199- Set away state when you do a `/away`.
200
201- When you `account off`, Skype will set status to `Offline`
202
203- When you `account on`, Skype will set status to `Online`
204
205- Detect when somebody wants to add you and ask for confirmation
206
207- Detect when somebody wants to transfer a file
208
209- Group chat support:
210
211  * Detect if we're invited
212
213  * Send / receive group chat messages
214
215  * Invite others (using `/invite <nick>`)
216
217  * Part from group chats
218
219  * Starting a group chat (using `/j #nick`)
220
221- Topic changes in group chats:
222
223  * Show the current topic (if any) on join
224
225  * Notice when someone changes the topic
226
227  * Support changing the topic using `/topic`
228
229- Viewing the profile using the `info` command.
230
231- Handling skype actions (when the `CHATMESSAGE` has `EMOTED` type)
232
233- Setting your display name using the `nick` command.
234
235- Running Skype on a machine different to BitlBee is possible, the
236  communication is encrypted.
237
238== What needs to be done (aka. TODO)
239
240- Fix `set skype/display_name foo`. It seem to be an upstream issue. (`nick
241  skype foo` works fine.)
242
243- Add support for accepting/rejecting and starting calls via settings. (Depends
244  on the previous fix.)
245
246- Notice if foo invites bar. Currently you can see only that bar joined.
247
248- Public chats. See link:http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=98872[this
249  forum thread], it is still unclear how could it be done for you to be able to
250  `/join` to a public chat..
251
252- Add `--disable-skyped` and `--disable-plugin` switches in case one wants to
253  build `bitlbee-skype` only for a public server or only for use with a public
254  server.
255
256== I would like to have support for ...
257
258If something does not work and it's not in the TODO section, then please
259contact me! Please also try the link:HACKING[git version] before reporting a bug, your
260problem may be already fixed there.
261
262In fact, of course, I wrote this documentation after figured out how to do this
263setup, so maybe I left out some steps. If you needed 'any' additional tricks,
264then it would be nice to include them here.
265
266== Known bugs
267
268- None at this time.
269
270== Screenshots
271
272You can reach some screenshots link:shot[here].
273
274== Additional resources
275
276You can reach the Changelog link:Changelog[here], and a gitweb interface
277http://vmiklos.hu/gitweb/?p=bitlbee-skype.git[here].
278
279The Skype API documentation is
280https://developer.skype.com/Docs/ApiDoc[here] if you're interested.
281
282== Thanks
283
284for the following people:
285
286* Wilmer van der Gaast, for answering questions about the bitlbee plugin interface
287
288* Arkadiusz Wahlig, author of skype4py, for making suggestions to skyped
289
290* Gabor Adam Toth (tg), for noticing extra code is needed to handle multiline
291  messages
292
293* Cristobal Palmer (tarheelcoxn), for helping to testing the plugin in a
294  timezone different to mine
295
296* people on `#bitlbee` for feedback
297
298Back to my link:/projects[projects page].
299
300// vim: ft=asciidoc
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