Receiving winpopup broadcast messages

vrsic · 10-29-2003, 02:59 AM

Hello!

I would like to receive winpopup messages from Wintendo boxes which are send to group (domain). Is there any possibilities? Alternatively is there any Win program which could forward messages directly to Linux box?

DarkO

hw-tph · 10-29-2003, 04:09 AM

www.littleigloo.org - Linpopup
I don't know if it works with broadcast messages (but I think it does).

Håkan

vrsic · 10-29-2003, 07:00 AM

Anything for CLI?

DarkO

hw-tph · 10-29-2003, 07:27 AM

Check this: http://samba.linuxbe.org/en/samba/config/advanced.html
You could tail the log (using tail or xrootconsole which is pretty cool). Set it up to echo the messages to a log that you have created (like /var/log/smb_messages or whatever) and tail that one so you won't have a lot of other console messages in the log.

I wouldn't use the ">" operator, but rather ">>" instead so the messages get appended to it. And of course, don't delete the log if you do this.

Håkan

vrsic · 10-29-2003, 07:33 AM

Thank you very much for your interesting solutions. The problem with Samba is that it doesn't catch the broadcast messages, just messages send to this particular machine :-(

DarkO

yapp · 10-29-2003, 07:49 AM

well, how are broadcast messages received by windows?

I'm really curious whether they are picked up by the netbios deamon (nmbd), or the samba daemon (smbd).

maybe you're not running the nmbd program?

(but I'm curious what that program is used for too btw)

hw-tph · 10-29-2003, 08:04 AM

Sorry, I wasn't aware of that.
I haven't investigated the broadcast net send issue, but a quick search on groups.google.com seems to verify what you say. Does it apply to Samba 3.0 as well? If you're running a 2.x version it might be an idea to try an upgrade, or at least read the mailing Samba lists on differences between 2.x and 3.0.

Håkan

vrsic · 10-29-2003, 08:14 AM

I was thinking in that direction too (Samba 3.0), I have to try it!
Thanks for the answers.

DarkO

yapp · 10-30-2003, 02:31 AM

Yesterday I've been experimenting with the "message command" line, but there is something you should be aware of.

That example writes a message to /dev/console, but this node is protected against writing (off course). If you've tried that example, you might believe the samba message didn't work.

I've solved this with 'sudo'. (type visudo)

Code:

Cmnd_Alias  WINPOPUP = /opt/sbin/winpopup.sh

samba           your_hostname = NOPASSWD: WINPOPUP

And this line in /etc/samba/smb.conf:

Code:

message command = sudo -b /opt/sbin/winpopup.sh %m %s

If anything fails, you should see it in the samba log files.

edit:I've found 2 problems in the script that the example provides:
* the script doesn't stop when an error occurs
* the "cat $1" should be changed into "cat $2"

Here is my version:

Code:

#!/bin/sh

set -e

# Parameter 1 ($1) is the name of the machine sending the WinPopUp message
# Parameter 2 ($2) is the name of the file containing the message.

if [ -z "$1" -o -z "$2" ]; then
  echo "Usage: $0 'user' 'temp-message-file'" >&2
  exit 1
fi
if [ ! -e "$2" ]; then
  echo "$0: Can't open $2" >&2
  exit 1
fi

# Write the message to the console
echo "" > /dev/console
echo "Message from $1" > /dev/console
cat $2 > /dev/console
echo "" >/dev/console

# Delete the file with the message
rm $2

I'd been testing this script locally only, but it seams to work.
When I open a virtual terminal, and type "smbclient -M myhostname", or "echo message | smbclient -M myhostname", the message appears at the console