httpcmdd 1.0

httpcmdd provides a way to have (web) browser user interface to programs running on the same machine as the browser. httpcmdd PEEKs the headers of the incoming message from browser and find program that matches the request received. Programs are run with privileges of the user running the browser. Each user may have their private commands available in their home directory in addition to the common programs installed to the system (if any). There is also possibility to place some programs in special directory and programs residing there will be run with root privileges. httpcmdd passes the socket it accepted to the program it started. httpcmdd did not read any data out of the socket, but just peeked it. Program gets all data send from the beginning and httpcmdd does not work as a proxy delivering the data; all data goes directly between peer and the program httpcmdd launched without anyone interfering. httpdcmdd server socket is bound to the localhost loopback interface only thus network connections to httpcmdd server is not possible -- and if those were, httpcmdd would be unable to identify the user on peer, disallowing further message processing. Finally, some sanity checking is done to incoming http headers; for example Referer: header (if one) not matching to httpd ip (127[.0[.0]].1) and port will cause connection shutdown. Installation and Usage There is a set of example programs (shell, perl and python scripts) that can be used to test and get a clue of httpcmdd usage. Just run quicktest.sh to check out those examples (just like in Quick Start section at the beginning of this document). It leaves behind symbolic link at $HOME/.httpcmdd and running httpcmdd daemon. You may want to clean these up after initial testing period (Note that quickstart.sh-compiled httpcmdd binary file was unlinked soon after it was launched). To compile httpcmdd daemon enter sh src/httpcmdd.c --prefix=/usr or sh src/httpcmdd.c --prefix=/usr/local at the command line. There is more options to give on command line; enter sh httpcmdd.c to see those if desired. (Ive planned to create Makefile for future needs; that will come in time). After compiled, enter ./httpcmdd (as root). If port 127.0.0.1:80 is unbound the daemon will start and detach from terminal. In that case you can try to connect to it by entering http://127.1/ on a browser window. That probably returns an error page (as there is no commands installed to provide content (unless you left the symbolic link generated by quicktest.sh laying around). If the port 80 is bound (probably by apache http server) or you do no access to root privileges, httpcmdd can be started with option -p . In that case you can access httpcmdd with url http://127.1: /. If httpcmdd was started with user privileges other than root only that user can access the services httpcmdd provides; access to all other users will be denied by default error message and incident is logged to system log. In case you want to install httpcmdd as a system service (started at system boot time) and you want to use port 80 for it (as I usually like to do) and you have other httpd servers on the system that binds both on localhost loopback interface (127.0.0.1) and on network interface, run httpcmdd first. With luck the other one will accept this and it works fine with other interfaces and skips 127.1. If not (or there is system limitations to do this automatically), you need to configure the other httpd to skip 127.1..

Requirements:	No special requirements
Platforms:	Linux
Keyword:	Browser,  Http,  Httpcmdd,  Interface,  Internet,  Programs,  Programs Running,  Running,  System,  To Have,  User,  User Interface
Users rating:	0/10