Connecting to a Microsoft Office Communicator or Live Office Communicator Server in Ubuntu

Dominic White

 

Connecting to a Microsoft Office Communicator or Live Office Communicator Server in Ubuntu

As part of my ongoing attempt to not use Windows this year, I have been struggling to find a way to get OCS/LCS working in Linux. Due to some recent work on the SIPE/SIPLCS Pidgin plugin, it is now working.
To make it work, first download the broken 'stable' version from the Sourceforge page (currently 1.3.2), and extract it to a directory.

Next, checkout the latest snapshot from the git repository, as version 1.3.3 fixes several problems with 1.3.2. If you're reading this and 1.3.3 is an ancient version, then skip this step and try the stable version from sourceforge first. The latest snapshot can be downloaded from the GIT repository. Just click the first 'snapshot' link at the top right.

Extract the snapshot into the same directory.

Next perform the usual configure/make routine you're used to. Remember to set the correct prefix based on how you have pidgin installed. If it is a binary package it will most likely be /usr, source compiles will be in /usr/local. I am using Ubuntu Intrepid and since chose /usr.

singe@blackguard:~/manual-install/sipe/merged$ ./configure --prefix=/usr
singe@blackguard:~/manual-install/sipe/merged$ make
singe@blackguard:~/manual-install/sipe/merged$ sudo checkinstall --fstrans=0 make install

I use checkinstall to make sure a package is generated. The --fstrans=0 switch is to turn off file system translation due to a current bug. This will actually install the files, so make sure you're running it on a system you want it installed to.

Next you will need to link the sipe libraries into libpurple as it is incorrectly installed to pidgin's directory. You can do this with:

singe@blackguard:~$ cd /usr/lib/purple-2/
singe@blackguard:/usr/lib/purple-2$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/pidgin/libsipe.* .

Now you're done. Fire up Pidgin and add a new account. Under protocol select "Microsoft LCS/OCS". The options are poorly named. Place your SIP server's address in the 'Proxy' field, select non-standard port then enter the port your OCS server is exposed on. I used 443 for SSL/TLS and selected the SSL/TLS connection type. Next I put my SIP username and password into the 'Username' and 'Password' fields, my domain username into 'Auth User' and domain into 'Auth Domain'.

For example:

Basic

Protocol: Microsoft OCS/LCS
Username: <sip account e.g. bob@company.com>
Password: <domain password>

Advanced

Use proxy: checked
Proxy Server: <SIP server e.g. sip.company.com>
Use non-standard port: checked
Port: <relevant port based on connection type, most likely 443>
Connection Type: SSL/TLS
Auth User: <domain username, e.g. BOB >
Auth Domain: <company domain e.g. COMPANY>

Monday, January 19. 2009
Posted by Dominic White in Geek
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#1 Jack (Reply)
Posted on Sunday, July 19. 2009
Thank-You very much for posting this! My company switched over the Office Communicator a while back and I've been wanting to get this working ever since. I'll be giving this a try tomorrow!!
 

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