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What is the SkypeProxy for imo.im
----------------------------------
Back in 2005 when I developed the Skype plugin for Miranda IM, I also developed
a very simple protocol to tunnel the Skype API protocol via a socket.
The reason was, that some users wanted the possibility to run Skype on a
machine different to the machine they are using Miranda IM on.
So to tunnel the Skype API remotely over the network SkypeProxy was built and
was shipped with every Skype plugin build.
The Skype API plugin for Miranda got more and more functions as the API evolved
and finally as I didn't have enough time to continue development, I handed over
development to user "tweety" who did the later versions.
The SkypeProxy-feature is still present in the current versions, as it is very
simple. It just wraps the communiction layer with the Skype API, therefore
this concept can also be adopted by other Skype-Plugins of other IMs.
Ever since the first version of Skype plugin, people complained that they had to
install the Skype client on their machine in order to get it to work.
The Skype client was always bloated but it got even worse throughout the years.
I abandoned Skype some time ago, as this application is just consuming far too
many system ressources. However, there are some people that are only using Skype
and I need a way to communicate with them. I'm just interested in the chat
feature, so I only need to send and receive messages from other chat users.
So what can we do about it?
There were some attempts to reverse-engineer the Skype protocol, but nobody
succeeded so far as the protocol relies heavily on cryptography, is proprietary
closed source and the Skype client itself is heaviely protected agains all
kinds of reverse-engineering (decrypts code on the fly, uses anti-debugging
tricks, etc.).
However some users recently discovered, that there is a new Web 2.0 service that
makes it possible to do Instant messaging via the web browser using the Ajax
framework. The name of the service is imo.im
imo.im managed to provide basic connectivity to the Skype network via SkypeKit
and the nice thing about their service is, that you don't need to register, you
can just use it out of the box.
However most people are not so excited about IM in a web interface, there are
many features that an IM application provides and that are not so convenient in
a webinterface. But as their service is a webservice using jSON calls,
it is relatively easy to talk to their application server and so users of
Instant messengers that provide Skype protocol support can take advantage of
this for providing basic connectivity to the Skype network for instant messaging
without having to install the bloated Skype client application.
Only instant messaging is possible. In fact there is also alpha-Support for
Voicechat via the imo.im flash application, but this currently doesn't work
reliable due to some Macromedia Flash sandboxing issues.
But I think for most users like me that just want to stay in contact with
other Skype users via chat these functions will be enough.
So as mentioned above the most generic approach to link imo.im services with an
Instant messanger would be to implement this as a wrapper between imo.im and
the Skype API. This way, we don't need to implement an extra plugin and it is
easily adaptable to Skype plugins of IMs, as you only need to use the
application in Skype API emulator mode. The Skype Plugin of the IM would need to do
proper error handling, but if the plugin is coded well (must be compatible with
Skype Protocol V3), this may even work out of the box.
The plugins mustn't assume that an API call always returns something useful on
every call.
The Skype API Emulation currently only works on Windows, other clients would
need to implement the very simple socket protocol for message exchange.
This application was originally developed to work with Miranda IM, so this IM
is officially supported.
The application runs on Win32 as well as on Unix, so it's a cross-platform layer
that you can also install on your personal Server. By design, it would be even
able to manage multiple users at once, however this feature is currently not
implemented in the SkypeProxy protocol. Depeding on the user's needs, this
can be implemented, most of the code for this is already there.
For usage with Miranda IM, a special plugin version was written, which
implementes the layer as a plugin so that it can be loaded into Miranda
and the user doesn't have to run the proxy application seperately.
The plugin version also has the advantage that it is able to communicate
with the Skype plugin directly.
How does it work
----------------
Is described in the preamble, this is just a drop-in replacement for the
communication end point of the Skype API.
The classical communication model for Skype API is:
[ Skype servers ] <--> [ Skype App ] <--> [ Plugin ]
The SkypeProxy communication model is:
[ Skype servers ] <--> [ Skype App ] <--> [ SkypeProxy ] <--> [ Plugin ]
Now with this Drop-in replacement the communication model is:
[ Skype servers ] <--> [ imo.im ] <--> [ SkypeProxy ] <--> [ Plugin ]
The application communicates via a socket connection on Port 1402, like
SkypeProxy does. It uses the imo.im services to connect to the Skype network.
You also have the possibility to emulate the Skype WIN32-API so that
any plugin can communicate with this application instead of Skype.
As said, there are 3 connection points to communicate with the plugin:
- WIN32 Skype API via Windowmessages, emulates the real Skype API for
compatibility with any Skype plugin. (Windows)
- Socket communication layer via TCP/IP. (Windows/Unix)
- Internal plugin communcation layer used by the Miranda IM plugin to
communicate with Skype plugin versions starting with 0.0.0.46
(Windows, Miranda IM plugin only)
How to compile
--------------
On Unix type systems, just extract this package and type "make".
After compiling, you will find imo2sproxy in the bin/ directory
On Windows systems, you will find Visual C 6 project files in the
msvc/ subdirectory.
You have Makefiles available for the appropriate modules:
imoskype.mak - Compiles the imo2sproxy standalone executable
imoproxy.mak - Compiles the Miranda IM Plugin
There are 4 available Targets:
Win32 Release - 32bit Windows Release version
Win64 Release - 64bit Windows Release version
Win32 Debug - 32bit Windows Debug version
Win64 Debug - 64bit Windows Debug version
i.e.:
nmake -f imoskype.mak CFG="Win32 Release"
Requirements
------------
On Linux, libcurl Libraries and the pthread library for threading
are needed in order to get this to work.
You can download CURL on http://curl.haxx.se/download.html
To install, just use libtool as usual.
On Windows, WININET is required which should be shipped with
Internet Explorer. So on an average Windows System, you shouldn't
need to install any additional libraries.
Please note, that libcurl IS NO LONGER NEEDED on Windows.
How to use the commandline version
----------------------------------
Find the precompiled binaries in the bin/ subdirectory.
imo2sproxy [-d] [-v [-l <Logfile>]] [-t] [-i]
[-m<s|a>] [-h <Bind to IP>] [-p <Port>] <Username> <Password>
-v - Verbose mode, log commands to console
-l - Set logfile to redirect verbose log to.
-d - Daemonize (detach from console)
-i - Use interactive mode (starts imo.im flash app upon call)
-t - Ignore server timestamp and use current time for messages
-h - Bind to a specific IP, not to all interfaces (default)
-p - Bind to another port (default: 1401)
-m - Specify connection mode to use:
s Socket mode (SkypeProxy protocol) [default]
a Skype API Emulation via Window messages (real Skype API)
-ma is only available on Windows systems.
As there is currently only a single-user implementation of this application, you
need to start imo2sproxy with your Skype username and password as parameters.
Example for using the socket protocol:
imo2sproxy -d -h 127.0.0.1 myuser mypass
As soon as the imo2sproxy is running, setup your Skype Plugin to use the
SkypeProxy at the machine you are running imo2sproxy on.
If you are running imo2sproxy locally, enter 127.0.0.1 as IP address.
After setting the SkypeProxy, you have to restart Miranda IM.
If all works well, you should now be able to use Skype via imo.im.
If it doesn't work, you can use the -v parameter to see what's going on and
if the connection works.
If it all works well, you can also install imo2sproxy on your machine
as a service using srvany.
Example for using the Skype API Emulation (win32 only):
imo2sproxy.exe -d -ma myuser mypass
As soon as the imo2sproxy is running, just try to use your Skype plugin and
see if it connects to the imo2sproxy locally.
Of course, if you have the Skype application installed, you mustn't run
it concurrently with the plugin with this configuration.
How to use the Miranda plugin
-----------------------------
Copy the imoproxy.dll file to your Miranda Plugins-directory.
As the name starts with i and the the Skype plugin name starts with s,
the imoproxy.dll module is loaded prior to the Skype-Plugin DLL which
is important to work properly if you are using the socket method.
For older versions of the Skype plugin (prior to 0.0.0.46, which is
currently still beta), you should use the socket communication method:
Configure the plugin DLL in the Options dialog Network/Skype Imoproxy.
Bind to address 127.0.0.1, Port 1401
Make sure that the Skype Proxy settings in your Skype plugin are the
same. The Skypeproxy-Plugin tries to take care of that.
Enter your Username and Password, set the appropriate options and press
OK. The Skypeproxy-plugin restarts itself. Try to reconnect Skype plugin
and see if it works.
The plugin is still experimental and may contain some bugs or stability
problems, so use with care. It may be harder to hunt down bugs with this
Plugin as its running as Miranda plugin and the only logging facility is
a logfile. So if you want to hunt down bugs, you may be better off with
using the standalone version, however the plugin is a start to make the
use of imo2sproxy easier. Feel free to improve the plugin.
For Skype plugin versions starting with 0.0.0.46, there is an internal
plugin link facility which makes it easier for the user to setup.
Bascially this should work out of the box, just enter your username and
password in the options dialog and ensute that the internal plugin
link service is active.
It will then automatically register to the Skype plugin.
Module structure
----------------
For the structure of the code-modules, please refer to the
structure.txt document.
SkypeProxy protocol
-------------------
Plase download the sourcecode of skypeproxy.c of Miranda IM Skype plugin, it's
all well documented in the .c file. Basically the protocol just consists of:
[UCHAR: number of bytes to send/receive][<char> Data]
for every line sent or received.
Contact
-------
Feel free to contact me regarding this project or if you wish to implement
SkypeProxy protocol in your own Skype-plugin implementation.
leecher@dose.0wnz.at
Vienna, 10/07/2009
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