Pidgin (Gaim) integration with Microsoft Lync Server

Pidgin integration with MS Lync Server Instant Messaging

CERN uses Microsoft Lync Server as the base of instant messaging services. While this platform is well integrated with Microsoft Windows clients and with Apple Mac OS X ones, integration was lacking for Linux clients.

This documentation outlines the setup process allowing Linux clients to benefit from integration with Microsoft Lync instant messaging.

While the initial installation of required software is specific to CERN SLC6 and SLC5 Linux distributions, following configuration steps shall be applicable on any modern Linux platform - running at least Pidgin 2.7.X and Pidgin-SIPE 1.12.0 plugin.

Software installation

As root on your SLC6 or SLC5 system run:

# yum install pidgin-sipe

once installation of required software packages finishes, please restart Pidgin.

Configuration

	Start pidgin (Menu Applications -> Internet -> Pidgin Internet Messenger)
	Select Manage accounts from Accounts menu and click Add.
	In Basic tab Select Office Communicator as Protocol Enter your CERN e-mail Firstname.Surname@cern.ch as Username Leave Login field empty Enter your CERN password as Password and optionally check Remember password checkbox.
	In Advanced tab Select SSL/TLS as Connection type Select NTLM as Authentication scheme Leave other fields empty then click on Add/Save to finalize account setup.

Adding CERN Lync contacts to Pidgin

Note: Contact search functionality against a Microsoft Lync server requires a CERN-patched pidgin-sipe-1.13.0 pre-release.

	Select Contact search... from Accounts -> Office Communicator menu and enter search term.
	Select desired contact and click Add.
	Click Add to add contact to main pidgin window.

Note: While pidgin-sipe plugin supports (to some extent) audio/video calling features of Lync Server (softphone), current pidgin versions on SLC6 and SLC5 do not have support for audio/video compiled in, therefore this feature is not available for now.