Monday 29 August 2016

Pidgin setup for Microsoft Communicator/Lync/Skype

Let me break the hiatus by writing a small post on the setup of pidgin for MS Communicator/Skype. This applies to my network and might vary in your case. Internet resources for setup does not somewhat give a complete picture. Hence I decided to do a writeup.

The base data is that the network uses Skype for Business and Office 365. Hence we need to do the following:

  1. Download pidgin using apt.
  2. Download pidgin-sipe package using apt.
Next start up pidgin and do the following settings:

  1. In the Accounts window (Accounts -> Manage Accounts)  select Add.
  2. Go to "Basic" tab
  3. Select "Office Communicator" as the protocol.
  4. For user name enter it in the format of the email address of your office 365 account.
  5. For "Login" field I enter in the format of "DOMAIN\user". Here "user" being the ldap login user name for your office 365 account.
  6. Enter your password in the password field and check the box "Remember password"
  7. Go to "Advanced" tab.
  8. Enter "Auto" in connection type.
  9. I have entered the User agent string as : "UCCAPI/16.0.6001.1073 OC/16.0.6001.1073 (Skype for Business)" minus the quotes. If you get an error please try other User agent strings as recommended in the FAQ given here: https://sourceforge.net/p/sipe/wiki/Frequently%20Asked%20Questions/#connection-refused-with-error-messagewzxhzdk12you-are-currently-not-using-the-recommended-version-of-the-clientwzxhzdk13you-have-been-rejected-by-the-server-httpsportalmicrosoftonlinecomdownloadlyncaspx
  10. Select the Authentication Scheme as "NTLM". It might vary for your network. Please try different options if the one I selected does not work.
  11. Keep all other options as defaults.
  12. In the proxy tab select "Environment Settings".
  13. Enable the account in the Accounts tab.
  14. Restart pidgin if needed. 
 Enjoy communication with your colleagues.

If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.
-John Von Neumann

Saturday 6 August 2016

Slow updates

In the past few months life has taken a tough turn. It keeps getting harder and harder to concentrate on anything when mental peace is elusive. I have decided to slow things down a little bit and take things slowly. Hopefully I will be able to get back fresh and continue with my passion and thereby educate you, the viewers with my blog posts. You can always mail or comment on my posts which will help me get me strength.

So wish me luck!