Setting up Skype with Bitlbee using Spectrum2-backend-skype

This looks dead.

The skype client for linux silently exits during login. I think the server is trying to tell us something.

You should use skypeweb instead.

The rest of this page contains outdated information.

This way to use skype with Bitlbee is quite different to the one mentioned in HowtoSkype. It does not need a plugin, but a daemon called spectrum2-backend-skype For this tutorial, I'm going to assume that the backend is running on the same machine as bitlbee itself.

Prerequisites

You need the following:

Configuring Spectrum2

This is the configuration I'm using for spectrum2:

/etc/spectrum2/spectrum.cfg

[service]
server_mode = 1

# Hostname (JID) of this Spectrum 2 server mode instance.
jid = localhost

# To bind to all ipv4 interfaces, use server=0.0.0.0
server = 127.0.0.1
port = 5222
backend_host = 127.0.0.1

# Full path to PKCS#12 cetficiate used for TLS in server mode.
#cert=
# Certificate password if any.
#cert_password=

# Number of users per one legacy network backend.
users_per_backend=1

backend=/usr/bin/xvfb-run -a -s "-screen 0 10x10x8" -f /tmp/x-skype-gw /usr/bin/spectrum2_skype_backend

# Libpurple protocol-id for spectrum_libpurple_backend
protocol=prpl-jabber

[identity]
name=Spectrum Jabber Transport
type=xmpp

[logging]
# log4cxx/log4j logging configuration file in ini format used for main spectrum2 instance.
config = /etc/spectrum2/logging.cfg

# log4cxx/log4j logging configuration file in ini format used for backends.
backend_config = /etc/spectrum2/backend-logging.cfg

[database]
type = none

[registration]
# Enable public registrations
enable_public_registration=1

Since the debian-package didn't include any script to start this daemon at system startup, I added the following to my own crontab:

@reboot                                 sudo spectrum2 --config /etc/spectrum2/spectrum.cfg >/dev/null 2>&1

(sudo, because i can't get it to work currently without running as root, but I'm working on that)

Setting up the account in bitlbee

This is fairly easy:

Bonsi@> acc add jabber <username>@localhost <password>
 root@> Account successfully added with tag jabber2
Bonsi@> acc jabber2 set tag skype
 root@> tag = `skype'
Bonsi@> acc skype set server 127.0.0.1
 root@> server = `127.0.0.1'
Bonsi@> acc skype set ssl off
 root@> ssl = `off'
Bonsi@> acc skype set tls off
 root@> tls = `off'
Bonsi@> acc skype on
 root@> skype - Logging in: Connecting
 root@> skype - Logging in: Connected to server, logging in
 root@> skype - Logging in: Authentication finished
 root@> skype - Logging in: Server changed session resource string to
        `tluyxgxibd'
 root@> skype - Logging in: Authenticated, requesting buddy list
 root@> skype - Logging in: Logged in

After that, bitlbee should fill the channel with skype-users.

BitlBee Wiki: HowtoSkypeWithSpectrum2 (last edited 2018-03-11 01:16:49 by dx)