source: skype/README @ e3d0b10

Last change on this file since e3d0b10 was e3d0b10, checked in by Miklos Vajna <vmiklos@…>, at 2008-05-06T08:09:39Z

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1= Skype plugin for BitlBee
2Miklos Vajna <vmiklos-at-vmiklos-dot-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 2.0.0.63.
32* BitlBee >= 1.1.1dev. The latest version I've tested is 1.2.
33* Skype4Py >= 0.9.28.7. Previous versions won't work due to API changes.
34* Python >= 2.5. Skype4Py does not work with 2.4.
35* PyGObject >= 2.8.0. Older versions are part of PyGTK. (And you don't want to
36  install GTK for nothing, right?)
37* pyopenssl or python-gnutls.
38
39`bitlbee-skype` has been tested under Linux and Mac OS X. Skype and Skype4py is
40available under Windows, too, so it probably works, but this has not been tested.
41
42== How to set it up
43
44Before you start. The setup is the following: BitlBee can't connect directly to
45Skype servers (the company's ones). It needs a running Skype client to do so.
46In fact BitlBee will connect to `skyped` (a tcp server, provided in this
47package) and `skyped` will connect to to your Skype client.
48
49NOTE: The order is important. First `skyped` starts Skype. Then `skyped` can
50connect to Skype, finally BitlBee can connect to `skyped`.
51
52- If you happen to be a happy Frugalware user:
53
54----
55# pacman-g2 -S bitlbee-skype
56----
57
58- You need the latest stable BitlBee release:
59
60----
61$ wget http://get.bitlbee.org/src/bitlbee-1.2.tar.gz
62$ tar xf bitlbee-1.2.tar.gz
63$ cd bitlbee-1.2
64----
65
66NOTE: You no longer need additional patches, as of version 1.1.1dev.
67
68- Now compile and install it:
69
70----
71$ ./configure
72$ make
73# make install install-dev
74----
75
76- Get the plugin code:
77
78----
79$ wget http://vmiklos.hu/project/bitlbee-skype/bitlbee-skype-@VERSION@.tar.gz
80$ tar xf bitlbee-skype-@VERSION@.tar.gz
81$ cd bitlbee-skype-@VERSION@
82----
83
84It doesn't matter where do you get it, it'll install the plugin to `/usr/local`
85by default (that's the location where BitlBee searches for plugins by default).
86
87- Compile and install it:
88
89----
90$ ./configure
91$ make
92# make install
93----
94
95- Install http://skype4py.sourceforge.net/[Skype4Py].
96
97- Edit `/usr/local/etc/skyped/skyped.conf`: adjust `username` and `password`. The
98  `username` should be your Skype login and the `password` can be whatever you
99  want, but you will have to specify that one when adding the Skype account to
100  BitlBee (see later).
101
102NOTE: Here, and later - `/usr/local/etc` can be different on your installation
103if you used the `--sysconfdir` switch when running bitlbee-skype's `configure`.
104
105- Generate the SSL pem files:
106
107----
108# cd /usr/local/etc/skyped
109# openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -nodes -config skyped.cnf -out skyped.cert.pem \
110        -keyout skyped.key.pem
111----
112
113NOTE: Maybe you want to adjust the permissions in the `/usr/local/etc/skyped`
114dir. For example make it readable by just your user.
115
116- If both pyopenssl and python-gnutls are available, then python-gnutls
117  will be used. This behaviour can be overwritten by:
118
119----
120$ export SKYPED_NO_GNUTLS=1
121----
122
123- Start `skyped` (the tcp server):
124
125----
126$ skyped
127----
128
129- Start your `IRC` client, connect to BitlBee and add your account:
130
131----
132account add skype <user> <pass>
133account set skype/server localhost
134----
135
136<user> should be your Skype account name, <pass> should be the one you declared
137in `skyped.conf`. If you want to run skyped on a remote machine, replace
138`localhost` with the name of the machine.
139
140If you are running skyped on a custom port:
141
142----
143account set skype/port <port>
144----
145
146If you want to set your full name (optional):
147
148----
149account set skype/display_name "John Smith"
150----
151
152If you want to see your skypeout contacts online as well (they are
153offline by default):
154
155----
156account set skype/skypeout_offline false
157----
158
159== Setting up Skype in a VNC server (optional)
160
161Optionally, if you want to run Skype on a server, you might want to setup up
162a `VNC` server as well. I used `tightvnc` but probably other `VNC` servers will
163work, too.
164
165First run
166
167----
168$ vncpasswd ~/.vnc/passwd
169----
170
171and create a password. You will need it at least once.
172
173Now create `~/.vnc/xstartup` with the following contents:
174
175----
176#!/bin/sh
177
178twm
179----
180
181Adjust the permissions:
182
183----
184$ chmod +x ~/.vnc/xstartup
185----
186
187Then start the server:
188
189----
190$ vncserver
191----
192
193Then connect to it, and set up Skype (username, password, enable
194auto-login, start skyped and allow the `SkypeApiPythonShell` client when
195Skype asks about it).
196
197Please be aware about that Skype has serious memory leak issues. After running
198with for a few weeks it may eat >300 MB of memory. Just don't forget to restart
199your VNC server regularly. (How ugly.)
200
201== Features
202
203- Download nicks and away statuses from Skype
204
205- Noticing joins / parts while we're connected
206
207- Sending messages
208
209- Receiving messages
210
211- Receiving away status changes
212
213- `skyped` (the tcp daemon that is a gateway between Skype and tcp)
214
215- Error handling when `skyped` is not running and when it exits
216
217- Marking received messages as seen so that Skype won't say there are unread messages
218
219- Adding / removing contacts
220
221- Set away state when you do a `/away`.
222
223- When you `account off`, Skype will set status to `Offline`
224
225- When you `account on`, Skype will set status to `Online`
226
227- Detect when somebody wants to add you and ask for confirmation
228
229- Detect when somebody wants to transfer a file
230
231- Group chat support:
232
233  * Detect if we're invited
234
235  * Send / receive group chat messages
236
237  * Invite others (using `/invite <nick>`)
238
239  * Part from group chats
240
241  * Starting a group chat (using `/j #nick`)
242
243- Topic changes in group chats:
244
245  * Show the current topic (if any) on join
246
247  * Notice when someone changes the topic
248
249  * Support changing the topic using `/topic`
250
251- Viewing the profile using the `info` command.
252
253- Handling skype actions (when the `CHATMESSAGE` has `EMOTED` type)
254
255- Setting your display name using the `nick` command.
256
257- Running Skype on a machine different to BitlBee is possible, the
258  communication is encrypted.
259
260- Managing outgoing calls (with call duration at the end, including
261  SkypeOut calls if you use a phone number instead of a nick):
262
263  * `account set skype/call nick`
264  * `account set -del skype/call`
265
266- Managing incoming calls via questions, just like when you add / remove
267  contacts.
268
269- Querying the current SkypeOut balance:
270
271  * `account set skype/balance query`
272
273== What needs to be done (aka. TODO)
274
275- Notice if foo invites bar. Currently you can see only that bar joined.
276
277- Public chats. See link:http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=98872[this
278  forum thread], it is still unclear how could it be done for you to be able to
279  `/join` to a public chat..
280
281- Add `--disable-skyped` and `--disable-plugin` switches in case one wants to
282  build `bitlbee-skype` only for a public server or only for use with a public
283  server.
284
285== I would like to have support for ...
286
287If something does not work and it's not in the TODO section, then please
288contact me! Please also try the link:HACKING[git version] before reporting a bug, your
289problem may be already fixed there.
290
291In fact, of course, I wrote this documentation after figured out how to do this
292setup, so maybe I left out some steps. If you needed 'any' additional tricks,
293then it would be nice to include them here.
294
295== Known bugs
296
297- None at this time.
298
299== Screenshots
300
301You can reach some screenshots link:shot[here].
302
303== Additional resources
304
305You can reach the Changelog link:Changelog[here], and a gitweb interface
306http://vmiklos.hu/gitweb/?p=bitlbee-skype.git[here].
307
308The Skype API documentation is
309https://developer.skype.com/Docs/ApiDoc[here] if you're interested.
310
311
312== Testimonials
313
314----
31500:56 < scathe> vmiklos: I like your skype plugin :)
316----
317
318----
319It's really working great so far.
320
321Good Job and thank you!
322Sebastian
323----
324
325----
326Big respect for your work, i really appreciate it.
327
328Martin
329----
330
331----
332Thanks for bitlbee-skype. As a blind Linux user, I cannot use the
333skype GUI client because qt apps ar not accessible yet with the
334available screen readers. bitlbee-skype allows me to make use of skype
335without having to interact much with the GUI client, which helps me a
336lot.
337
338Lukas
339----
340
341----
34202:12 < newton> i must say, i love this little bee ;)
34302:15 < newton> tried it out today with the skype plugin, good work!
344----
345
346== Thanks
347
348for the following people:
349
350* Wilmer van der Gaast, for answering questions about the BitlBee plugin interface
351
352* Arkadiusz Wahlig, author of skype4py, for making suggestions to skyped
353
354* Gabor Adam Toth (tg), for noticing extra code is needed to handle multiline
355  messages
356
357* Cristobal Palmer (tarheelcoxn), for helping to testing the plugin in a
358  timezone different to mine
359
360* Risko Gergely, for his SkypeOut ideas
361
362* people on `#bitlbee` for feedback
363
364Back to my link:/projects[projects page].
365
366// vim: ft=asciidoc
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