Subject: Re: ICI Software update Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2002 08:45:52 -0800 From: Neil Nelson Organization: www.AIMetaSearch.com To: CyberLegend aka Jure Sah CC: "Harold P. Boushell" Dear Jure Sah, The following describes the current format of the communications file for applciation to application commands. The primary file communication format is currently designed to transfer commands to ICI Console programs. A file named `icsa.cmm' is placed in the communications directory and then the ICSA reads that file, deletes, and executes the commands obtained from that file such as: source_process ici source_ip 192.168.0.3 destination_process ici destination_ip 192.168.0.2 remote_command "this is a remote command 2" - source_process identifies the program providing or sending the command. This is required. - source_ip identifies the IP of the program providing the command. This is optional and will not likely be used after today, since I can use the IP of the socket. - destination_process is the name of the program receiving the command on the remote computer. This is required. - destination_ip is the name of the IP to which the command is being sent. Currently this paramter is required, but shortly we will be using, e.g., destination_name Harold from which a lookup of the IP for Harold will take place. That table entry will have previously required a request to the server to get the dynamic IP. Or perhaps that lookup can be made when a name is used and the table entry is not yet present. A problem occurs when the computer for that dynamic IP is not connected to the Internet which then requires a reply for that condition to the local application (ICI) that we may want to discuss. - remote_command may be followed by a string without spaces that is the command to be sent. Or the command may be placed in double quotes. Or the word `follows' may be used to indicate that the command string is placed at the end following two double quote marks as follows: --- start example --- remote_command follows ""Any number of lines and any select of characters (0-255) may be used after the double quotes. This is the last line, e.g., of the command sequence in this double quote area. --- end example --- Currently the output file of the command, the file on the remote computer made available to the remote ICI, would contain only the remote command portion, e.g., from above: --- start example --- this is a remote command 2 --- end example ---- or only the character string after the double quote when `follows' is used. I will change the code so that the word `follows' can be avoided, only `remote_command' will be required so that the double quote area will be assumed. The parameter lines before any possible double quote area may be entered in any sequence. This is also the case for the config file (which does not have a double quote area). - get_ici_time is an additional minor command that will return the number of seconds and milliseconds (9999999999:999, plus or minus around 100ms) since the beginning of 1970 in ICI time once the time sync has been made. A routine to format that to either a more familiar time at longitude zero or at the likely local time will be written later. I will send the file transfer format next. Regards, Neil Nelson