lonotify

An efficient remote notification system, primarily designed to be used as an irssi client notification

History

After weeks of searching and trying tools to allow IRSSI notifications over SSH, I did not find anything suitable. So I gave up and built one from scratch. I called it lonotify because it's made to only listen on loopback address.

How it works

Server

lonotifyd.pl

Listens on loopback interface, port 4455, for a message. It listens for TCP only, because SSH tunneling works only on TCP. Upon reception of a message, the server will forward it to the d-bus notification daemon.

Use -d option to daemonize it.

Clients

The clients will simply connect on loopback port 4455, and send then notification. The SSH connection will redirect that to the local machine's port 4455.

throwtext.pl : a IRSSI plugin

It provides the following :

• command throwtext : to simply send text to lonotifyd.
• option pm_override : sometimes, you want privacy. This string will replace any private message you receive.

lonotify-client.pl : a CLI.

use as :

$ lonotify-client.pl -t "title" -m "body of the message"

weechat/throwtext.pl : a weechat plugin

It provides the following: - command /throwtext : to simply send text to lonotifyd.

Benefits

• It can work through NAT, and will not mind if you are using in a terminal multiplexer (e.g.: screen, tmux). All it needs is a SSH connection.

• Efficient : each notification requires little data sent through.

• Easy setup, little configuring required

• Low attack surface: only a local attacker either on the local machine or remote IRSSI machine could benefit of this service. The messages are protected by the ssh connection.

Installation

1. Run the server on your local computer: $ lonotifyd.pl -d
2. SSH with port tunneling with the -R command with $ ssh -R 4455:localhost:4455 <remote-location>
3. On the IRSSI machine, put the throwtext.pl plugin in the IRSSI script directory (e.g.: ~/.irssi/scripts/)
4. In IRSSI, start the throwtext plugin, using /script load throwtext

Notes

• If you use a multiplexer and detach, the plugin will fail and will be unloaded by irssi when the SSH connection exit. You will have to reload it once you re-attach the multiplexer.
• If the connection crashes unexpectedly, the port 4455 will remain hanging for several minutes on the remote machine, and the port can not be reused for a few minutes. You will have to re-ssh again after a few minutes, when the port is freed.

TODO

• Correct the stuck port on connection drop
• add optional stuff to the protocol, such as compression, icons, etc.i
• test text