XMMSd web control plug-in 0.3 review
DownloadXMMSd web control plug-in allows XMMS to be controlled with a Web browser
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XMMSd web control plug-in allows XMMS to be controlled with a Web browser. It makes it easier for languages like PHP to remotely control XMMS.
Requirements:
GLib 1.2.0
GTK+ 1.2.0
XMMS Xmms 1.2.0
The need for this came up when the author wanted to make a jukebox but didn't want to implement playlists, decoding and playing. XMMS was so good at that already. Also if one wanted to interface with XMMS from a CGI or PHP program XMMS would have to run as the same user as the webserver. It would also be troublesome for PHP to speak XMMS' native language because it is very machine bound and PHP isn't too good at that.
What is offered is both a GUI-like interface that could be used right from a web browser (HTML4 and CSS is used) and a plain-text interface (ini-file style) (backend) that is ment for other front-ends to use.
Installation:
Either stick with the RPM or unpack the tarball, run "./configure" with the switches you need, "make", and finally as root "make install" or "make install-strip" if you don't want the debugsymbols.
Run "./configure --help" for more info about the switches.
Usage:
You have most features when running it as a plug-in so that is probably what you want to use first. It offers GUI configuration for starters. Simply start XMMS (after installing the plug-in ofcause), open preferences, in the general plugin list, select XMMSd and hit the checkbox below.
Then open http://127.0.0.1:8335/ in a webbrowser.
By default it binds to 127.0.0.1 which means that only clients on the local host can access XMMSd.
There is a second interface accessed through http://127.0.0.1:8335/text.html which is just plain links and just HTML1.0.
The third and final interface is ment for third party front-ends and is reached by http://127.0.0.1:8335/backend/
See /backend/help.html for more info about the back end interface.
NOTE!
Think of the security implications before activating the plug-in.
Who can access the port and who should.
If you for some reason prefeer to run the command line version deactivate the plug-in, open a terminal and run xmmsd --help for a list of options. Just running xmmsd gives you the same defaults as the plug-in.
After toying around with the web interface it's time to go to the next section.
Configuration:
In XMMS, select the plug-in in the general plug-in list and click the Configure button. Here you will find two tabs; Network and Authentication. In the network tab you set which interface to bind the input port to. What this means is that if you set 127.0.0.1 (the default) into it only hosts that can reach your 127.0.0.1 can connect to XMMSd... and that is only the same machine that can. If you, however, change it to the address of another interface, all hosts that can reach that can connect. If you set it to * in accepts connections on all available interfaces. So if you have a connection to Internet on the machine you may want to add firewall rules etc before binding it to * or the interface that connects to Internet.
You also can change the port that is used to connect to XMMSd with.
On the Authentication tab you may set it to require a username and password from clients connecting before they can enter. This is stored in plain text in ~/.xmms/config so anyone that can access that file and connect to XMMSd can use XMMSd.
Security:
As with all network servers. Think before allowing folks in. I doubt that anyone can DoS it and gain root access as it doesn't run anytning. But nothing is bug free. If you neglect the security issues and all of a sudden XMMS goes haywire you may want to check your configuration.
Compatiblity:
You'll be the judge of that. I've only tested it on GNU/Linux. It should be just as portable as XMMS but one never knows.
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