D 2013-02-10T13:19:14.075
L Webserver
P 1038851e5daef1bde39a70b6f730b5861dc562a1
U jim
W 1483
<h1><center>Web Server Software</center></h1>

The web server software is actually a [www.lua.org | Lua] interpreter with a Web server extension.  The extension is [http://www.gnu.org/software/libmicrohttpd/ | libmicrohttp ] written and maintained by Christian Grothoff.  The Lua interpreter is standard Lua 5.1 and the webserver is activated by running scripts that interpret the  [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer/ | REST] commands.

The RESTful command structure is shown here:

<center><img src="doc/tip/Docs/Images/rest_cmds_web.png" width="616" height="248"/></center>

These commands are sent as a URI with the base part the web server address then rest/<command>. In Firenet we use GET and POST.  Get is used for a simple command with no extra data and POST is used along with a  [http://www.json.org/ | JSON] representation of the data.

For example to fire channel 3 on node 5 and if we assume the web server is at 192.168.1.123:8080 the RESTful command URI would be: <b>http://192.168.1.123:8080/rest/firenet/fire/5/3</b>

As detailed in the [Network | Network] section Firenet is normally connected via USB connection to a Serial device.  That would then connect to real hardware.  In addition a simulation mode is added so if you connect to a port named X and tell it the number of Firenet nodes it will simulate the network and the nodes.  This allows you to run the system and try out shows with no hardware.

[Firenet | back]
Z 8fe4ea99b48e2dceb66f7b8140fcd1d8