HOWTO: Connect to Google Talk with Bitlbee
Bitlbee is an IRC gateway application that allows you to use an IRC client to chat with people on any of the major IM networks. Basically, you run Bitlbee as a daemon, and then connect to it as if it were a standard IRC server (6667/tcp). From there, you have Bitlbee log in to the various networks, and each of the people on your contact lists shows up in the #bitlbee channel.
It’s a really cool idea. It’s particularly useful if you predominantly use IRC for chatting, but you have a few friends who only use, for example, AIM.
From the earliest versions of Bitlbee it has been easy to connect to AIM, MSN, and ICQ. Now that Google has launched their own IM service (based on the Jabber protocol), many people would like to connect to that network as well.
So here’s how to use Bitlbee to connect to Google Talk (aka GTalk)…
The BitlBee User Guide has the basic syntax to use:
Syntax:
account add jabber handle password servertag
So for example, you would send the following command to your control channel:
<@jpm> account add jabber username@gmail.com mypasswd
talk.google.com:5223:ssl
<@root> Account successfully added
After root responds with “Account successfully added,” you can check your accounts with ‘account list’.
<@jpm> account list
<@root> 0. OSCAR, myname on login.oscar.aol.com (connected)
<@root> 1. JABBER, username@gmail.com (connected)
<@root> End of account list
After you have added the account, type ‘account 1 on’ and it should log in:
<@jpm> account on 1
<@root> JABBER - Logging in: Connecting
<@root> JABBER - Logging in: Connected
<@root> JABBER - Logging in: Requesting Authentication Method
<@root> JABBER - Logging in: Authenticating
<@root> JABBER - Logged in
If you are unable to connect, try switching the port to 5223. For some unknown reason, some people must connect on 5222 and others must connect on 5223. There appears to be no way to know which one to use other than trial and error. The easiest way to change the port number (IMHO) is to simply delete the account you created (’account del 1′) and add it again.
For what it’s worth, I ended up using 5222 and it worked fine.
Update: Don’t forget to save your configuration when you are done!
October 19th, 2006 at 11:20 pm
Thanks for this howto. How about the phone feature of google talk?
October 20th, 2006 at 8:36 am
Anton:
I’m not sure I know what you mean. Bitlbee and IRC are text based, so there would be no way to do audio through them. What exactly are you looking for?
October 26th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
[...] See also: HOWTO: Connect to Google Talk with Bitlbee [...]
December 25th, 2006 at 7:02 am
Thanks!
Now I have all IM’s in irssi online!!
February 1st, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Hey, thanks a bunch!
It worked for me on port 5223.
March 29th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
i cant seem to rename my google talk and actualy its not even showing up in my bitlbee channel even though it does show me as connected. any ideas why?
April 4th, 2007 at 5:08 am
people with german gmail have to use:
account add jabber username@googlemail.com mypasswd talk.google.com:5223:ssl
otherwise they geht an error on activating:
account on 1
JABBER – Logging in: Connecting
JABBER – Logging in: Connected
JABBER – Logging in: Requesting Authentication Method
JABBER – Logging in: Authenticating
JABBER – Login error: Error 403: Unknown error
JABBER – Signing off..
August 5th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
I did not know that Bitlbee supports Google Talk too. I have just added my account. Thank you.
August 30th, 2007 at 12:32 am
[...] <http://thinkhole.org/wp/2006/09/20/howto-connect-to-google-talk-with-bitlbee/> [...]
December 14th, 2007 at 4:28 am
Thanks for the instructions! They worked perfectly for me, except for having to change ‘gmail’ to ‘googlemail’ just as german said. So, I guess german’s comments applies to Finnish Gmail users in addition to the German ones (Vielen Dank =:])
May 13th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
@root> Trying to get all accounts connected…
16:15 jabber – Logging in: Connecting
16:16 jabber – Logging in: Connected to server, logging in
16:16 jabber – Couldn’t log in: Short write() to server
16:16 jabber – Logging in: Signing off..
idk it used to work now i cant login
May 17th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Hey your howto is awesome…thank you so much…being new to irc and with a dream to build a thin machine…i switched to biltbee to ignore those bulky apps….great thanks man once again
May 31st, 2008 at 4:52 am
> 16:16 jabber – Couldn’t log in: Short write() to server
same for me are you on debian ?
account set may help ….
–
http://rzr.online.fr/q/jabber
May 31st, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I’ve been using Bitlbee for quite some time with much success. However, I’ve never been able to use my GoogleTalk account with it yet. Version 1.0.3 simply segfaulted when connecting to Google Talk. Just installed v1.2 and followed numerous howto’s (including this one) but I just keep getting:
00:20 jabber – Logging in: Connecting
00:20 jabber – Logging in: Connected to server, logging in
00:20 jabber – Logging in: Converting stream to TLS
00:20 jabber – Logging in: Connected to server, logging in
00:20 jabber – Couldn’t log in: Short write() to server
00:20 jabber – Logging in: Signing off..
00:20 jabber – Logging in: Reconnecting in 300 seconds..
Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
[...] an error with the unhelpful “Connection Closed” message. A bit of searching came across a post that had some helpful wisdom on it: account add jabber username@gmail.com mypasswd [...]
June 10th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I think jabber changed somthing, I am, on gentoo and archlinux, it’s ther same, “jabber – Couldn’t log in: Short write() to server” error on both..
as for my setup thats easy :
account add jabber email@gmail.com ********** talk.google.com:5223:ssl
June 19th, 2008 at 2:41 am
Same here, google talk doesn’t want to connect with this error:
Couldn’t log in: Short write() to server
:(
June 19th, 2008 at 5:25 am
Ok. After re emerging (I’m on gentoo) bitlbee, with the “gnutls” useflag, it works fine!
June 19th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Same problem… Gentoo box:
auto_connect =`true’
auto_reconnect = `true’
password is empty
username = `XXXXXXX@gmail.com’
port = `5223′
priority = `0′
resource = `Home’
resource_select = `priority’
server = `talk.google.com’
ssl = `true’
tls = `try’
xmlconsole = `false’
Results in:
jabber – Logging in: Connecting
jabber – Logging in: Connected to server, logging in
jabber – Couldn’t log in: Short write() to server
jabber – Logging in: Signing off..
I’ve tried both port numbers, with and without TLS and I’m not even sure what the xmlconsole does, but I tried that too… No change…
Version: 1.2
USE flags: jabber oscar ssl yahoo msn xinetd
Thanks for any help :)
June 19th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
The fix for the aforementioned problem (for Gentoo at least) is located here:
http://bugs.bitlbee.org/bitlbee/ticket/379#comment:4
June 20th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Yeah, I think you need gnutls compiled in on Gentoo. For reference, here’s how I currently have it built…
[ebuild R ] net-im/bitlbee-1.2 USE=”gnutls jabber msn oscar ssl yahoo -debug -ipv6 -nss -test -xinetd” 0 kB
Works for me. :)
September 24th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Thanks!!!!
Worked fine!!
April 17th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Here’s how to do it in newer releases of BitlBee:
account add you@gmail.com password
account list
— look for: ###. jabber, you@gmail.com
Where ### will be 0 or 1 or 2 depending on the # of the account you just added. Then do the following:
account set #/server talk.google.com
account set #/port 5223
account set #/ssl true
account on #
Should connect fine.