tkbd

tkbd is a daemon run on the faculty of sciences of the Radboud University Nijmegen to register which computer lab PC's are free and which are taken.

tkb.js is a frontend.

How it works

Information stored

tkbd maintains three bits of information. See state.py.

1. occupation: for each PC its current state, which is either:
 o the PC is turend off
 x the PC is in an unknown state
 wf the PC is free and booted in Windows
 lf the PC is free and booted in Linux
 wu the PC is used and booted in Windows
 lu the PC is used and booted in Linux
 wx the PC is booted in Windows, but we do not know if it is used
 lx the PC is booted in Linux, but we do not know if it is used
2. roomMap: a list of rooms and the PC's in it.
3. schedule: for each room, the possible reservations of it.

Source of information

When people log in and out of computers, this is logged. A script watches the log and pushes changes to tkbd via HTTP requests on port 1235. See cnczPush.py.

Secondly, another script periodically polls all PCs. The results of this scan are also pushed to port 1235.

The schedule is pulled from (Ruuster)[http://ruuster.nl]. See ruuster.py.

How to access it

Joyce

tkbd uses a bidirectional JSON message exchanging protocol over HTTP called Joyce. A client can create many channels with the server. On each of these channels, the server and the client can send messages to eachother.

- To create a channel, send a HTTP GET request to the server for /?m=null. The server wil respond with an array [< token >, < messages >, < streams >]. token contains the token assigned to this channel. messages is a list of messages the server has send. streams is not important for tkbd.
- After this, you should send another HTTP GET request to the server. This time for /?m=[< token >]. This time the server might not respond immediately. When there is a message (or after a timeout), the server will respond with a similar array [< token >, < messages >, < streams >].
- To send a list of messages messages, send a HTTP GET request to the server for /?m=[< token >, < messages >]. Now there are two outstanding HTTP requests. The one to send these messages and another to receive. One of these two will be responded to immediately. The other will stay open to receive messages.

So, what messages does tkbd send and tkbd likes to receive?

Messages sent by tkbd

Every messages sent by tkbd is one of the following. See cometApi.py.

1. {"type": "welcome", "protocols" : [0]}

 This is the first message sent. It tells which protocols tkbd understands. Currently, there is only protocol: 0.

2. {"type": "occupation", "version": < version >, "occupation": < occupation >}

 This is one of the first messages sent. It contains the current occupation of PC's. occupation is a dictionary with as keys names of PC's and as values the state of the corresponding PC's.

3. {"type": "roomMap", "version": < version >, "roomMap": < roomMap >}

 This is one of the first messages sent. roomMap is a dictionary with as keys names of rooms and as values the corresponding list of PC's in that room.

4. {"type": "schedule", "version": < version >, "schedule": < schedule >}

 This is one of the first messages sent. schedule is a dictionary with as keys names of rooms and as values the corresponding schedule of that room. A schedule of a room is a list of events. An event is a list with three element: the first element is the starting time; the second is the ending time and the third is a decription of the event.

5. {"type": "occupation_update", "version": < version >, "update": < update >}

 This message is sent, when the occupation of one or more PCs changes. update is a dictionary with as keys PC names and as values the new state of the corresponding PC.

On every update of the occupation, roomMap or schedule, the corresponding version is incremented by one. A client should check whether it has missed an update. And if so, resynchronize by using one of the following.

Messages received by tkbd

1. {"type": "get_occupation"}

 When received, the server will send in return an occupation message.

2. {"type": "get_roomMap"}

 When received, the server will send in return a roomMap message.

How to install it

The simplest way to install tkbd is to run

 easy_install tkbd

easy_install is a part of Python's setuptools. (In Debian, try apt-get install python-setuptools).
How to run it

To run, simply execute:

 mirte tkbd/setups/default

This will run the default setup of tkbd. For changes in occupation it will listen on port 1235. This is not useful if you are not the IT guys of the faculty.

You can configure tkbd to mirror another tkbd instance. To mirror the default tk.science.ru.nl, simply run:

 mirte tkbd/setups/slave

To create a custom configuration, copy and edit one of the .mirte files in src/setups.

What is new in this release:

• Support for mirroring
• Fix some bugs

Requirements:

• Python