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Logging into Google Talk with bitlbee

UPDATED: now with shorter and more accurate instructions 😉

I keep forgetting how to do this, so here it is: 

account add jabber [your email address]
account set oauth on
account gtalk on

And then you’ll be prompted to go through oauth authorization with a link in another chat window.

<3 bitlbee.

2 thoughts on Logging into Google Talk with bitlbee

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  1. Wilmer · February 18, 2012 at 12:11 am ·

    Found your post during my periodic Twitter search for “bitlbee”, finding out what people complain about/are happy about in BitlBee. 🙂

    Was the ssl-true+port-5223 part really necessary? That’s old-style SSL instead of proper StartTLS and should be considered obsolete. Only very old clients (i.e. Jabber clients, written before the protocol got standardised as XMPP in 2004) need this old method.

    This should be enough:

    account add jabber [your email address]
    account gtalk set oauth on
    account gtalk on

    No need to set the server either normally if there are SRV records in DNS for your Google (Apps) domain, like this:

    $ dig +short +noshort srv _xmpp-client._tcp.gmail.com
    …
    _xmpp-client._tcp.gmail.com. 900 IN SRV 5 0 5222 xmpp.l.google.com.

    I’m glad you’re using the OAuth stuff. Everyone should switch to using that. 🙂