Monday, February 4, 2013

Unlocking Jabber Video Sign-In Preferences for Jabber.com

Recently, I was doing some testing with the Jabber Video for TelePresence (Movi) client. I was all set to go. I had my Jabber client loaded on my iPad, my VCS up and humming (loudly, I might add), and the Jabber Video client running on my MBP. I wanted to add another client to the mix, so I figured I would use the Jabber Video client on my iMac. This client was configured to use the free Jabber service (jabber.com) and I found out that I was unable to edit the server configuration. 

I found an easy (albeit unsupported) fix to the problem and I figured it was worth sharing.

Background

On my home computer, I have the Jabber Video for TelePresence client provisioned to use Cisco's free jabber.com hosted service. This works great most of the time but, every once in a while, I want to point my client to a VCS (my company's or another system) for testing. 

Unfortunately, when I try to edit the account properties, I am greeted with the following:



I do not like being restricted so I started to investigate ways to work around the issue. I found a quick fix that seams to work well for me.

Fix

I believe there is probably more than one way to solve this problem. The following method is just the one I stumbled upon. I doubt Cisco supports this method nor do I know if it causes any issues. It hasn't for me but I still offer the disclaimer: use at your own risk.

Oh, if you have a better alternative, let me know via the comments below.

On with the show...

The following steps should "un-restrict" access to the Sign-In preferences:

Step 1: Shut Down Jabber Video

Easy enough, just quit the Jabber Video application (Cmd-Q).

Step 2: Edit Package Contents

Open up Finder and go to your Applications folder. In the file list find "Jabber Video.app". Right click on the file and choose "Show Package Contents".




Step 3: Neutralize the Target

A new Finder window will launch and you will see all sorts of files and folders. Find the "Resources" folder and look at the files/folders there. Scroll down until you see a file called "ForcedConfig.plist". That is the file that stands between you and freedom. You can look at the file in a text editor (it is XML). 




I suppose you could just delete the file but I didn't do that. I simply renamed the file to "notForcedConfig.plist". That seamed to work fine for me. Moreover, if I want to go back to being compliant, I can rename the file back to the original file name and everything appears to work fine.

Step 4; Re-Launch Jabber Video

You can now run Jabber Video and will be able to edit the account sign-in preferences.


Considerations and Notes

It is worth repeating: the process here is not a Cisco-approved process. It works for me, I see no reason why it wouldn't work for you but I am not responsible if your MBP just up and disappears in a cloud of smoke (or even if something less catastrophic happens).

A little more background: When trying to resolve this issue, I did check on line but I apparently failed to use effective search terms because I didn't find much help. I then searched my Mac (using spotlight) for the URL that Cisco uses for the Internal server in the "locked" configuration. That URL was no where to be found. This led me to looking in the package contents of the .app file itself. From there, it was a simple matter to find the file I was looking for.



Thanks for reading. If you have time, post a comment!

6 comments:

  1. Hi Bill,

    For iphone I used the app realpresence by polycom, is free and you can register with H323 or SIP.

    At your MBP with unlocked MOVI, do you need some kind of license to register at VCS?

    Thanks again for all your work!

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  2. I'll have to give that a try. I have tested CounterPath's Bria with the VCS but I was only using it for an audit/assessment we were doing for a customer. I'd like to have the Polycom because it would be good to test interop. So, thanks for the pointer.

    You do need a license to use Jabber Video (Movi) with a VCS. You do not need a license with the jabber.com environment.

    -Bill (@ucguerrilla)

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  3. You can do the same on Windows client Jabber Video for TelePresence which is the same client as Jabber Movi (for VCS/VCS-E).

    1) Search Registry for [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\cisco\JabberVideo]
    2) Delete key "InternalVcs"
    3) If not enough, search and delete [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Cisco\JabberVideo\Forced]

    You may now edit Sign-In preferences.

    If you change Internal/External VCS server for your own and want to use Cloud Callway again, simple add following as an "Internal VCS":
    "https://sjc1-movi-pr-bootproxy-vip.ciscojabbervideo.com/endpoint/configuration"

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  4. Spectacular! I kept editing the plist file in Library, but it kept getting switched back when I relaunched Jabber. I could not figure that out. Thanks so much for solving this one.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Going on 3 years later... still relevant. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete