Send events via external webpage?

[thug]

Hi,

I want to see if I can get a home automation web page up and running, you know, click a button on a web page, from work, and my mediabox responds.

I have a server (PC1) and a mediabox (PC2) both inside my firewall.
PC1 has a web server (visible on the internet port 80) but not EG.
PC2 has EG running on it but no web server (or maybe the webserver plugin).

I know how to surf my web server, from work, click a button (on the web page) and PC1 processes the result (via a form using cgi, php or asp etc...)
That works....
Now how do i get the web server (on PC1) to send something to EG on my PC2?

I'm thinking some of my options are:-

a) Get the web server (PC1) to execute a stub proggie (using psexec) that sends events to EG on PC2 (does a stub proggie exist like girder has?).
b) Write a php or asp network event sender to interact with PC2's network event receiver (ouch, has this been done already?).
c) Dump events in a file on PC2's HDD and use directory watcher plugin and python script to process them.
d) Get php (on PC1) to "surf" the webserver plugin on PC2.

Is there another / easier / quicker / non-complex way?

Has anyone done anything similar?

I hope I haven't confused anyone.

Cheers!

[Bitmonster]

Options c) and d) are bad ideas.

Option a) might work, but there is no stub proggie currently.

Option b) has been done. I use it all day with Apache. My PHP script looks like this:

Code: Select all

<?
function sendMsg($args)
{
    $fp = fsockopen($args["host"],$args["port"], $errno, $errstr, 10);
    
    if (!$fp)
    { //Something didn't work....
        echo "ERROR: $errno - $errstr\n";
        return FALSE;

    } else {

        // First wake up the server, for security reasons it does not
        // respond by it self it needs this string, why this odd word ?
        // well if someone is scanning ports "connect" would be very obvious
        // this one you'd never guess :-)
        
        fputs($fp, "quintessence\n\r");
        
        // The server now returns a cookie, the protocol works like the
        // APOP protocol. The server gives you a cookie you add :<password>
        // calculate the md5 digest out of this and send it back
        // if the digests match you are in.
        // We do this so that noone can listen in on our password exchange
        // much safer then plain text.
        
        $cookie = fgets($fp, 400);		
        
        // Trim all enters and whitespaces off
        $cookie = trim($cookie);
        
        // Combine the token <cookie>:$args[pword]
        $token = $cookie . ":" . $args["password"];
        
        // Calculate the digest
        $digest = md5($token);
        
        // add the enters
        $digest = $digest . "\n";
                
        // Send it to the server		
        fputs($fp, $digest );
        
        // Get the answer
        $res = fgets($fp, 400);
        
        // If the password was correct and you are allowed to connect
        // to the server, you'll get "accept"
        if ( trim($res) != "accept" )
        {
             fclose($fp);
             return FALSE;
        }
        
        if (isset($args['payload']))
        {
            if (is_array($args['payload']))
            {
                foreach($args['payload'] as $key => $value)
                    fputs($fp, "payload " . $value . "\n");
            }else
            {
                if ( $args["payload"] <> "" )
                    fputs($fp, "payload ".$args["payload"]."\n");		
            }		
        }
        // now just pipe those commands to the server
        fputs($fp, $args["eventstring"]."\n");
        
        // tell the server that we are done nicely.
        fputs($fp, "close\n");
        
        fclose($fp);
            
        return TRUE;
    }
}


if (isset($_GET))
{	
    if(isset($_GET['host']))
        $args['host'] = urldecode($_GET['host']);
    else
        $args['host'] = '127.0.0.1';
    $args['port'] = 32333;
    $args['password'] = 'password';
    $args['eventstring'] =  urldecode($_GET['event']);
    foreach($_GET as $key => $value)
        if(strcasecmp(substr($key, 0, 3), 'pld') == 0)
            $args['payload'][] = urldecode($value);
    sendMsg($args);
    if(!isset($_GET['REFERER']))
        $_GET['REFERER'] = "index.html";
    header("Location: http://".$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']
           . dirname($_SERVER['PHP_SELF'])
           ."/".$_GET["REFERER"]);
}
?>

Could be written better but was only a quick hack that works now for years. Just edit the $args['host'], $args['port'] and $args['password'] to your setup.
You call the script with a URL like:
http://MyHost/MyScript.php?event=MyEven ... =next.html

REFERER is the page that should be displayed after the link.

[Bitmonster]

And option a) should now also work:
http://www.eventghost.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=287