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Just thought I would send another update and a preview. This has been
really fun to work on. I think I am going to officially call it
"Hobbit2IPPhone". I will probably create a sourceforge project and
whatnot for it as well.<br>
<br>
Here is some info on Hobbit2IPPhone:<br>
* Hobbit2IPPhone can be run without touching the Call Manger, or having
admin access to the CM. All you need is your normal user login and pass
to the CM (same one you use to set your speed dials, etc).<br>
* Hobbit2IPPhone requires a web server with CGI access (could easily
use your Hobbit server).<br>
* The web server that the CGI is run on, needs bi-directional
connectivity to your IPPhone. If you can telnet to port 80 of your
phones IP address, you should be good to go. The phone also needs to be
able to hit port 80 of your web server.<br>
* The CGI needs connectivity to your Hobbit server, as it uses $BB to
query the hobbitdboard to get the host infos. If you are running the
CGI on your Hobbit server, this is a non-issue as it will just talk to
localhost just like any server-side Hobbit extension script.<br>
* Hobbit2IPPhone can be run as a sever-side Hobbit extension script, or
out of a cron job on another server, provided there is connectivity
from the CGI host to the IPPhone on port 80.<br>
<br>
Here's how my phone looks when everything is OK:<br>
<img alt="" src="cid:part1.07040208.01060708@cisco.com" height="240"
width="320"><br>
* Currently it is optional to display this message if all is green. I
figured some people may only want their screen to change if there is an
alert.<br>
* Hitting "update" updates the display. There is also an automatic
refresh timer.<br>
<br>
<br>
Heres the view when some alerts have triggered:<br>
<img alt="" src="cid:part2.03060001.05000705@cisco.com" height="240"
width="320"><br>
As you can see, you get a nice ordered list, with a summary of how many
hosts are alerting.<br>
* You can select either via the up/down rocker on the phone and then
hitting "Select"<br>
* You can also select by pressing the number that is next to the alert.<br>
* To make it look nicely formatted I coded it so that it automatically
truncates the hostname so as not to line wrap.<br>
* Hobbit2IPPhone will override your phones idlescreen/screensaver, so
any alerts will not be hidden :)<br>
* Due to a limitation in the IPPhone, a maximum of 99 alerts can be
selected. I hope you never have this many!<br>
<br>
<br>
Here's what you get when you select a host, in this case, the first one:<br>
<img alt="" src="cid:part3.00070309.02000201@cisco.com" height="240"
width="320"><br>
Right now I have it showing the current status message for the alert,
as well as the alert duration. This can easily be configured to display
anything you can get from hobbitdboard. I still have to reformat the
text a bit so that it compacts better. * Text that doesn't fit on the
screen is accessible by scrolling down.<br>
* When you hit "Exit" you are automatically brought back to the first
menu (an updated version of it, not a stale copy)<br>
* I also have to truncate the hostname in the upper title "Status for
..." because the IPPhone is picky and if this is too long, it just
bombs and won't accept the rest of the data at all!<br>
<br>
<br>
That's it for now...I'm going to continue hacking on this and try to
make it as user-friendly as possible before I release it.<br>
<br>
-----<br>
Possible future features:<br>
Hobbit2IPPhone 2.0: <br>
* Acknowledge/Enable/Disable alerts from the IPPhone, including text
input of reason.<br>
* Viewing of some reports or log data, like notification log, alert
history, etc.<br>
<br>
Hobbit2IPPhone 3.0:<br>
* Full graphics implementation - It's possible to have a mini
hobbit-like display and interface, and even view trends graphs<br>
-----<br>
<br>
FAQ: <br>
Q. What model IPPhones will this work on? <br>
A. I am currently developing using a 7960. I assume any 79xx will work.<br>
<br>
Q. What about color?<br>
A. Send me a color IP Phone to dev with and I will see what I can do :P
<br>
Q. Wha? You work for Cisco, don't you have color IPPhones and routers
coming out of your ears?<br>
A. I actually work for a nonprofit section of Cisco. We don't have any
spare equipment, and even with my "discount" I can't afford to buy an
IPPhone just to play with, otherwise I would run a VOIP network at home
:)<br>
<br>
Q. Can you make the message light flash, or the phone chirp when there
is an alert?<br>
A. So far, I don't think so. I have not found anything in the HTTP/XML
protocol that gives me access to those functions. I'd like that feature
as well, and I suspect it is possible, so I will keep looking for a way
to do it.<br>
<br>
Q. What software prerequisites are there?<br>
A. Any webserver that can run a Perl CGI script. For Apache, this means
mod_perl, which shouldn't be a problem for most linux distros, Solaris
folks may have to jump through some hoops. The script uses the
following perl modules:<br>
CGI;<br>
LWP::UserAgent;<br>
URI;<br>
Time::localtime;<br>
It may also use Cisco::IPPhone, but thusfar I have written most of my
own simple XML functions and may remove that dependancy. With the
exception of Cisco::IPPhone, all of the modules are common ones that
should be installable via your linux distros package manager. For
Solaris folks and anyone else, you can install them via CPAN ie "perl
-MCPAN -e 'install LWP::UserAgent'<br>
<br>
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