Linphone is an open source softphone for voice and video over IP calling and instant messaging.

It is fully SIP-based, for all calling, presence and IM features.

General description is available from linphone web site.

How to get it

You can also download APKs signed with our key from our website.

License

Copyright © Belledonne Communications

Linphone is dual licensed, and is available either :

• under a GNU/GPLv3 license, for free (open source). Please make sure that you understand and agree with the terms of this license before using it (see LICENSE file for details).

• under a proprietary license, for a fee, to be used in closed source applications. Contact Belledonne Communications for any question about costs and services.

Documentation

• Supported features and RFCs : https://linphone.org/technical-corner/linphone/features

• Linphone public wiki : https://wiki.linphone.org/xwiki/wiki/public/view/Linphone/

• Tutorials : https://gitlab.linphone.org/BC/public/tutorials/-/tree/master/android/kotlin

What's new

6.0.0 release is a completely new version, designed with UX/UI experts and marks a turning point in design, features, and user experience. The improvements make this version smoother and simpler for both developers and users.

You can take a look at the CHANGELOG.md file for a non-exhaustive list of changes of this new version and of the newly added features, the most exciting ones being the improved fluidity, a real multi-accounts support and asymetrical video in calls.

This release only works on Android OS 9.0 and newer.

Building the app

If you have Android Studio, simply open the project, wait for the gradle synchronization and then build/install the app.
It will download the linphone library from our Maven repository as an AAR file so you don't have to build anything yourself.

If you don't have Android Studio, you can build and install the app using gradle:

./gradlew assembleDebug

will compile the APK file (assembleRelease to instead if you want to build a release package), and then

./gradlew installDebug

to install the generated APK in the previous step (use installRelease instead if you built a release package).

APK files are stored within ./app/build/outputs/apk/debug/ and ./app/build/outputs/apk/release/ directories.

When building a release AppBundle, use releaseAppBundle target instead of release.
Also make sure you have a NDK installed and that you have an environment variable named ANDROID_NDK_HOME that contains the path to the NDK.
This is to be able to include native libraries symbols into app bundle for the Play Store.

Building a local SDK

1. Clone the linphone-sdk repository from out gitlab:

git clone https://gitlab.linphone.org/BC/public/linphone-sdk.git --recursive

2. Follow the instructions in the linphone-sdk/README file to build the SDK.

3. Create or edit the gradle.properties file in $GRADLE_USER_HOME (usually ~/.gradle/) and add the absolute path to your linphone-sdk build directory, for example:

LinphoneSdkBuildDir=/home/<username>/linphone-sdk/build/

4. Rebuild the app in Android Studio.

Native debugging

1. Install LLDB from SDK Tools in Android-studio.

2. In Android-studio go to Run->Edit Configurations->Debugger.

3. Select 'Dual' or 'Native' and add the path to linphone-sdk debug libraries (build/libs-debug/ for example).

4. Open native file and put your breakpoint on it.

5. Make sure you are using the debug AAR in the app/build.gradle script and not the release one (to have faster builds by default the release AAR is used even for debug APK flavor).

6. Debug app.

Known issues

• If you have the following build issue AAPT: error: resource drawable/linphone_logo_tinted (aka org.linphone:drawable/linphone_logo_tinted) not found, delete the app/src/main/res/xml/contacts.xml file (you can do it simply with git clean -f command) and start the build again.

• If you encounter the couldn't find "libc++_shared.so" crash when the app starts, simply clean the project in Android Studio (under Build menu) and build again. Also check you have built the SDK for the right CPU architecture using the -DLINPHONESDK_ANDROID_ARCHS=armv7,arm64,x86,x86_64 cmake parameter.

• Push notification might not work when app has been started by Android Studio consecutively to an install. Remove the app from the recent activity view and start it again using the launcher icon to resolve this.

Troubleshooting

Behavior issue

When submitting an issue on our Github repository, please follow the template and attach the matching library logs.

Starting 6.0.0 release, logs are always enabled and stored locally on the device, you can clear them/upload them securely on our server for sharing by going into the Help → Troubleshooting page.

Native crash

First of all, to be able to get a symbolized stack trace, you need the debug version of our libraries.

If you haven't built the SDK locally (see building a local SDK), here's how to get them:

1. Go to our maven repository and find the directory that matches the version of our SDK that crashed.

2. Download the linphone-sdk-android--libs-debug.zip archive.

3. Extract the symbolized libraries somewhere on your computer, it will create a libs-debug directory.

Now you need the ndk-stack tool and possibly adb logcat. If your computer isn't used for Android development, you can download those tools from Google website, in the Command line tools only section.

Once you have the debug libraries and the proper tools installed, you can use the ndk-stack tool to symbolize your stacktrace. Note that you also need to know the architecture (armv7, arm64, x86, etc...) of the libraries that were used.

If you know the CPU architecture of your device (most probably arm64 if it's a recent device) you can use the following to get the stacktrace from a device plugged to a computer:

adb logcat -d | ndk-stack -sym ./libs-debug/arm64-v8a/

If you don't know the CPU architecture, use the following instead:

adb logcat -d | ndk-stack -sym ./libs-debug/`adb shell getprop ro.product.cpu.abi | tr -d '\r'` 

Warning: This command won't print anything until you reproduce the crash!

Create an APK with a different package name

Simply edit the app/build.gradle.kts file and change the value of the packageName variable. The next build will automatically use this value everywhere thanks to manifestPlaceholders feature of gradle and Android.

We no longer build the debug flavor with a different package name, but if you still want that behavior you only have to change the value of useDifferentPackageNameForDebugBuild to true. When enabled, app built and installed by Android studio will have org.linphone.debug package name instead of org.linphone.

If you encounter

Execution failed for task ':app:processDebugGoogleServices'.
> No matching client found for package name 'your package name'

error when building, make sure you have replaced the app/google-services.json file by yours (containing your package name). If you don't have such file because you don't rely on Firebase Cloud Messaging features nor Crashlytics, delete the file instead.

Firebase push notifications

Now that Google Cloud Messaging has been deprecated and will be completely removed on April 11th 2019, the only official way of using push notifications is through Firebase.

However to make Firebase push notifications work, the project needs to have a app/google-services.json file that contains the configuration.
We have archived our own, so you can build your linphone-android application and still receive push notifications from our free SIP service (sip.linphone.org). If you delete it, you won't receive any push notification.

If you have your own push server, replace this file by yours.

CONTRIBUTIONS

In order to submit a patch for inclusion in linphone's source code:

1. First make sure your patch applies to latest git sources before submitting: patches made to old versions can't and won't be merged.
2. Fill out and send us an email with the link of pull-request and the Contributor Agreement for your patch to be included in the git tree.

The goal of this agreement to grant us peaceful exercise of our rights on the linphone source code, while not losing your rights on your contribution.