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stenny
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Posts: 100
Location: Germany
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 Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 11:10 pm Post subject: Console Application in Web Browser Window - HowTo? |
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I want to connect to my private Web server (Apache2) from the internet and then start a predefined console application by a specific link (or URL typed in the browser's address box). In my case I want to start telnet to connect to a small computer running embedded Linux. ( http://www.axis.com - DevBoardLX)
Is there any information available on the net, describing how to achieve this goal?
stefan |
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drwook
Veteran
Joined: 30 Mar 2005
Posts: 1324
Location: London
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 12:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Umm.... Any reason not to use telnet/ssh/vnc/nx? |
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stenny
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Posts: 100
Location: Germany
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 9:51 pm Post subject: |
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Yes 
The client machine is sitting behind a firmly closed firewall. Internet connections can only be established by using a http-proxy, which only supports http(s).
And as I've never set up a configuration like this, I consider it a good exercise . If only I knew, where to start ...
stefan |
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drwook
Veteran
Joined: 30 Mar 2005
Posts: 1324
Location: London
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| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 9:42 am Post subject: |
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| Why not just run a telnet server on port 80? Don't see how a proxy could determine what it was, afaik most are simply port based. |
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stenny
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 06 Feb 2003
Posts: 100
Location: Germany
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| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 10:06 pm Post subject: |
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running a telnet server on port 80 is no answer to this question for 2 reasons:
1) a http proxy server like squid is not only a port based filter (like e.g. a firewall). Towards the client, it behaves like a http server and towards the server it behaves like a browser. Whenever you request a http page from a server, the proxy checks if it already has the page in it's cache and serves the browser from there. Otherwise, it asks the real server. The proxy can also do some basic checks on http-requests. Telnet-like packages do not contain http-requests and are therefor blocked by the proxy.
2) The configuration I want to set up looks like this:
Client --- <Internet/http> --- Machine 1 --- <LAN/telnet> --- Machine 2
The Client runs a normal web browser, like Firefox, Opera or any other
Machine 1 runs an Apache HTTP server and connects to Machine 2 (a small embedded Linux device) via telnet
If redirected port 80 to Machine 2, I could not reach my web server on Machine 1 any longer.
These are the reasons, why I'd prefer a solution, which uses only http as communication protocol and Machine 1 as a http/telnet gateway.
Regards
stefan |
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dpc
n00b
Joined: 09 Nov 2005
Posts: 16
Location: Chicago
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| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 10:21 pm Post subject: |
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Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but could you set up the web server itself as a proxy? (ala mod_proxy perhaps or some sort of socks proxy?)
I haven't done this myself, but...kind of seems like what you might be looking for. If you set up mod_proxy with the AllowCONNECT directive, you could then probably use a telnet client that can use an HTTP proxy and specify the telnet command such as connect <host> <port> (I know putty does this).
Good luck!
_________________
Former die-hard Debian user, now co-mingling my Debian boxes with Gentoo and posting on the Gentoo forums...what has the world come to? |
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think4urs11
Bodhisattva
Joined: 25 Jun 2003
Posts: 6659
Location: above the cloud
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d11wtq
Apprentice
Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 192
Location: Manchester, UK
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| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 10:54 pm Post subject: |
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Use PHP.
It;s dangerous in any situation to use shell commands over HTTP but in any case:
| Code: |
<?php
//Use the system() command to execute shell commands
system('ls -al'); //Run the ls command
//Or use backticks to execute the command
`ls -al`;
?>
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You can pass that output around too, and print things to screen (you can even collect output into an array). |
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tutaepaki
Apprentice
Joined: 11 Nov 2003
Posts: 279
Location: New Zealand
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| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 11:07 pm Post subject: |
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sounds like stunnel is what you are looking for.
[url]stunnel.org[/url] |
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wjholden
l33t
Joined: 01 Mar 2004
Posts: 826
Location: Augusta, GA
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| Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 3:46 am Post subject: |
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Bah, a stateless protocol like HTTP is terrible for something as resource intensive and interactive as a terminal. But, we all understand the occasional need for this kind of thing, just don't expect to use a console text editor.
You should consider writing a form-based text editor in addition to your command-line interface.
An example of your command-line interface: | Code: | #!/usr/bin/perl
#
sub getcgivars {
my $in = shift;
$in =~ s/\+/ /g ;
$in =~ s/%([0-9A-Fa-f]{2})/chr(hex($1))/ge ;
$in =~ s/%([0-9A-Fa-f]{2})/chr(hex($1))/ge ;
$in =~ s/\n/<br>/g;
return $in;
}
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
read(STDIN, $line, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});
$line = ($line =~ s/&/ /ge);
$line = ($line =~ s/input=//);
$line = &getcgivars($line);
$returnvalue = `$line`;
$br = '<br>
';
$returnvalue = ($returnvalue =~ s/\n/$br/ge);
print '<html>
<title>Console</title>
<body>
<h3>Console</h3>
<p>
';
print $returnvalue;
print '</p><p>
<form action="http://example.com/cgi-bin/console.pl" method="post">
Enter a command: <input type="text" name="input">
<INPUT type="submit">
</form>
</p>
</body>
</html>'; |
If that code doesn't work I'll be happy to read whatever errors it produces, but you won't see me running this on my webserver.
I should mention that WebMin has the features you're asking for, although you wouldn't be able to use it as a result of the firewalling issues you discussed earlier. |
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