How To Configure Pidgin To Use Microsoft Lync in Ubuntu Linux

I mentioned recently that I replaced Windows 7 on my company laptop with Bauer-Puntu 13.04. One of the items I had to do to make the transition a little more seamless was to get company instant messaging working.

We currently using Office365 for email and instant messaging. On the back end Office365 is using Lync and Exchange to provide those services so this works on that, and should also work if you using in-house Lync.

Here is what did to get it to work:

• Installed the pidgin-sipe plugin
  
  sudo apt-get install pidgin-sipe
  
• Add a new account, and selected Office Communicator as the protocol
• For the username and login I used my email address, and of course I entered my password.
• On the Advanced tab change the connection type to Auto
• Use the following for User Agent: UCCAPI/4.0.7577.314 OC/4.0.7577.314
• Change authentication scheme to TLS-DSK
• Uncheck the Single Sign-On box
• Click Save

That's it, after that Lync worked flawlessly on Pidgin! Pidgin is also great because it supports every other protocol so you can use all your IM accounts in one application.