InstallationSiriProxyHints

SiriProxy Setup Hints

Installing and configuring SiriProxy prior to using this project's plugin can be quite tricky. The following hints may be helpful.

Note: SiriProxy does not currently work with iOS 7; see SiriProxy issue 542 for details.

Install Ruby as root

Follow the SiriProxy setup instructions for Ruby and RVM as root. This ensures that Ruby will be installed system-wide, and makes it much easier to automatically launch SiriProxy as a service. The easiest way to do this is to start a new shell before starting the setup:

sudo -i

When finished, exit the root shell and apply the .bashrc modifications (applied to /root/.bashrc) to the normal user's ~/.bashrc by repeating the two echo commands.

Use a bash Shell for SiriProxy

RVM and the standard SiriProxy setup assume use of a bash shell. If a different default shell has been configured (such as tcsh) then temporarily start a new shell for installing and running SiriProxy:

bash

Launch SiriProxy as a Service using upstart

To avoid needing to manually launch SiriProxy configure it as a service managed by upstart.

Put the following in ~/bin/siriproxy:

#!/bin/bash
HOME=/home/USER
PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/rvm/bin
[[ -s "/usr/local/rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && source "/usr/local/rvm/scripts/rvm"
export rvmsudo_secure_path=1
rvmsudo siriproxy server

Put the following in /etc/init/siriproxy.conf:

description "SiriProxy server"

start on (started networking
          and filesystem)

start on runlevel [2345]
stop on runlevel [!2345]
respawn

exec start-stop-daemon --start --make-pidfile --pidfile /var/run/siriproxy.pid --exec /home/USER/bin/siriproxy 

In both files replace USER by the name of the user account being used. The shell script can be placed in a different location by modifying the path in the exec start-stop-daemon line of the siriproxy.conf file appropriately.

SiriProxy can then be started using:

sudo start siriproxy

and stopped using:

sudo stop siriproxy

The logging output from SiriProxy can then be viewed using:

sudo tail -f /var/log/upstart/siriproxy.log

Redirect Siri to SiriProxy

One of the trickiest aspects of installing SiriProxy is intercepting the connection to Apple's Siri servers, whilst still allowing SiriProxy itself to connect to them. This redirection is accomplished by running a local DNS server (or forwarder) that points guzzoni.apple.com to the machine running SiriProxy.

With early versions of SiriProxy this was quite complicated because SiriProxy would use the default DNS to resolve guzzoni.apple.com itself, so it was necessary to provide a separate DNS server just for the iOS devices. This was traditionally done by manually configuring the DNS server in the iOS devices' Wi-Fi settings to point to a server running dnsmasq, which would then redirect guzzoni.apple.com whilst forwarding other addresses to the normal DNS server.

However, recent versions of SiriProxy make the process far simpler. Firstly, SiriProxy now has its own DNS configuration (defaulting to Google's public DNS servers) so the default DNS server can safely be changed for all devices on the local network, e.g. by specifying it in the DHCP server's configuration. Secondly, SiriProxy contains its own DNS server that redirects guzzoni.apple.com to itself whilst forwarding all other requests, so it is not necessary to setup a separate DNS server.

DNS Configuration using BIND

It is still possible to use a separate DNS server to redirect the connection to the Siri servers. The following example is for BIND (named).

Add the following to /etc/bind/named.conf.local:

zone "guzzoni.apple.com" {
        type master;
        file "/etc/bind/db.guzzoni.apple.com";
        forwarders { };
};

Create /etc/bind/db.guzzoni.apple.com:

;
; BIND data file to redirect iOS devices to SiriProxy
;
$TTL    20m
$ORIGIN guzzoni.apple.com.
@       IN      SOA     ns1.local.thouky.co.uk. username.example.com. (
                     2013061402         ; Serial (yyyymmddss)
                            20m         ; Refresh
                             5m         ; Retry
                             4w         ; Expire
                             1w )       ; Negative Cache TTL
        NS      ns

; Redirect Siri to SiriProxy
        A       192.168.0.10

; Aliases for servers (cannot use CNAME for nameservers)
ns              A       192.168.0.10

Obviously 192.168.0.10 should be changed to the IP address of the machine running SiriProxy.

Change the SiriProxy Port Number

If Apache is running on the same machine and has been configured to support SSL connections then it will be using port 443. Unfortunately, Siri uses the same port number to connect to SiriProxy. To resolve this conflict, iptables can be used to redirect connections from specific devices to an alternative port number. Ensure that it is installed using:

sudo apt-get install iptables iptables-persistent

First, configure SiriProxy to use a different port number by modifying the port: setting in the ~/.siriproxy/config.yml file. In this example port number 8443 is used:

port: 8443

Ensure that any iOS devices on the local network have static IP addresses, e.g. by adding them explicitly to the DHCP server's configuration. This is necessary because the iptables routing is based on IP addresses rather than hostnames. Then configure iptables so that accesses from those addresses made to local port 443 are redirected to port 8443. In this example the iOS devices are assumed to have addresses 192.168.0.100 and 192.168.0.101:

sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -s 192.168.0.100,192.168.0.101 --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8443

Note that this will also redirect SSL (https:) accesses from Safari.

The iptables-persistent package loads the iptables rules from configuration files at system start-up. These files should be updated following any reconfiguration using:

sudo sh -c "iptables-save > /etc/iptables/rules.v4"
sudo sh -c "ip6tables-save > /etc/iptables/rules.v6"

Update Plugins

Add, remove and configure SiriProxy plugins by modifying ~/.siriproxy/config.yml. Following any changes ensure that the necessary files are installed by running (in a bash shell):

siriproxy bundle

Alternatively, to also update both SiriProxy and its plugins to the latest versions run:

siriproxy update

Either way, then restart SiriProxy using:

sudo restart siriproxy