• HowtoTwitter

Setting up a Twitter account in BitlBee

Since version 1.2.6, BitlBee has native support for Twitter via the Twitter API. Since 1.2.7, it uses OAuth authentication for this, as the Twitter.com API will stop accepting HTTP-Basic authentication from the end of June.

To use your Twitter account in BitlBee:

   1 11:45:03 <wilmer> account add twitter BitlBee foo
   2 11:45:03 <root> Account successfully added
   3 11:45:06 <wilmer> account on
   4 11:45:06 <root> Trying to get all accounts connected...
   5 11:45:06 <root> twitter(BitlBee) - Logging in: Requesting OAuth request token

Since you're using OAuth, you don't have to enter your actual Twitter password at this point. Since BitlBee requires a password to be entered for every account, just type something bogus here (like foo in this example).

This will start up OAuth authentication. Soon, you will receive a message from twitter_yourusername:

   1 11:45:07 <twitter_bitlbee> To finish OAuth authentication, please visit http://api.twitter.com/oauth/authorize?oauth_token=xxxxxxxxx and respond with the resulting PIN code.