Realtime IM/Chat Notification

from procmail and other event generating tools

... using PSYC

• Carlo v. Loesch (psyced.org)
  ___(the /me-guy)
• Stephen R. van den Berg (Cubic Circle BV)
  ___(the procmail-guy)

overview: events

in real-time:

• e-mail
• wiki edits
• forum/blog posts
• system monitoring
• software check-ins
SMTP is a push technology with messages traveling our way rather than us having to look for them. Yet, during the 90s we stopped reading our mail on our mail servers, e-mail clients needed protocols to access our e-mails and now these e-mail clients periodically ask the server for new mail rather than receiving it in real-time. This introduces an unnecessary latency in e-mail conversation. This talk provides a practical solution how procmail can be used to forward a mail's author and subject line straight to an IRC, XMPP or PSYC client, so at least you know when a new e-mail has arrived, immediately, and you can hit that "Get Mail" button. You can even set up such a mechanism for all users on the system, so they don't have to figure out procmail by themselves. We will also show realtime notification interfaces for software versioning system check-ins, syslog daemon events, Mediawiki edits, Phpbbs and Drupal message submissions. All of these things can be brought to you in real-time rather than by e-mail or not at all. http://www.linuxtag.org/2007/de/conf/events/vp-donnerstag/vortragsdetails.html?talkid=64

overview: display

how to show?

• popups? naaah
• Jabber message
• IRC channel
• webchat
• PSYC newscast

10 minutes? eh!?

thunderbird's defaults:

SMTP can be real-time

• SMTP? real-time!
• spooling no must
• greylisted?
• SEND, SOML, SAML?
• POP and IMAP spoiled it
• your port 25?

procmail

• most common mail delivery agent
• aged, robust and proven
• sorts mails
• weeds out spam
• event driven, no polling

PSYC in your .procmailrc

:0 hc
!psyc://psyced.org/~nickname

• ! = forward action
• h = header
• c = continuing recipe
• 0 = don't ask

jabber in your .procmailrc

PSYCRELAY=psyc://localhost

:0 hc
!xmpp:user@jabber.example.net

• procmail does no XMPP
• too complex. too time critical.
• procmail uses PSYC relay
• http://about.psyc.eu/procmail

let's wear a uniform!

psyc://psyced.org/~lynX is my uniform

• because humans are not resources
• addresses users at PSYC servers
• simple UDP packet
  (optional shared secret)
• how does that look like?

what a weird protocol!

.
:_target    xmpp:user@jabber.example.net

:_origin    Mary Foo <spam@gotthroo.example.com>
:_subject   Vulcans: VIAGRA for your ears!
:_nick_alias	bombMail
_notice_received_email
([_nick_alias]) [_origin]: [_subject]
.

how can i see that?

• a psyced server is multi-protocol
• IRC client
• XMPP client
• webchat.. telnet..
• PSYC client!

pidgin receiving a notification

(type='headline' == unpleasant pop-up)

ircII receiving a notification

do i have to use your server?

• no, it's open source
• psyced in C and LPC
• alternatives in development
• PSYC is a decentralized
• optimized for interserver
• IRC & XMPP good with clients

mail notify for all!

:0 hc
!psyc://localhost/~$LOGNAME

users use 'any' software to get notified
• authentication plan needed

mediawiki notify plugin

• -> discussion channel
• also via 'MUC'
• output flavor
• the php source for this:

mediawiki notify plugin source

function psycnotify($art, $user, $text, $sum, $isminor, $isw, $sect) {
    global $psyctarget, $psychost;

    $url = "http://" . $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'];
    $url.= str_replace("index.php?title=","index.php/",substr($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'],0,-14));
    $s = ":_target\t$psyctarget\n\n"
       . ":_nick_wiki\t". strToLower($user->mName) ."\n"
       . ":_article\t". $art->mTitle->mTextform ."\n"
       . ":_page\t$url$sect\n";
    if ($sect) $s.= ":_section\t$sect\n";
    if ($sum) $s .= ":_summary\t$sum\n";
    $mc = "_notice_update_wiki";
    if ($isminor) $mc .= "_minor";
    $s.= $mc."\n(Wiki:[_nick_wiki]) has made a ".($isminor?"minor":"major")." change in [_page]\n";
    if ($sum) $s .= "saying: [_summary]\n";
    $udp = fsockopen($psychost, $psycport);
    fwrite($udp, ".\n". $s .".\n");
    fclose($udp);
    return true;
}
$wgHooks['ArticleSaveComplete'][] = array('psycnotify');

mediawiki notify installation

• psyced with #wikinotify channel ready
• install on same machine, or config trust
• join #wikinotify via IRC
• psyc://wiki.example.org/@wikinotify via PSYC
• xmpp:*wikinotify@wiki.example.org via jabberMUC

blogs, forums and mp3

• drupal notify? same thing
• http://about.psyc.eu/Drupal
• psyc syndication for phpbb even has an admin interface
• perl! http://perl.psyc.eu
• psycmp3: now playing
• remote control it

syslog2psyc

• mkfifo /dev/psyc
• chown $user /dev/psyc
• syslog.conf:

  *.warn;*.err |/dev/psyc

• syslog-ng.conf equivalent
• run syslog2psyc as $user

  syslog2psyc psyc://example.org/@syslog

psycfilemonitor

• also in http://perl.psyc.eu
• usage:

  psycfilemonitor psyc://example.org/@files /tmp

• uses famd
  (Inotify.pm not ready in 2005)

cvs2psyc

DEFAULT /path/cvs2psyc psyc://example.org/@cvs '%r' '%p' '%s'

(CVS:lynx in psyced/place) tagesschau.c changed: new feed url

• multicast distribution
• programmable places