in reply to Re: Browsers as stand-alone UI
in thread Browsers as stand-alone UI

This may be an unreasonable design goal, but I wanted to have the end result meet the following requirements:
  1. The setup work required to install this application would ideally be "Copy stuff to this location and make a link on the Desktop"
  2. Launching this application would be nothing more than clicking on the link which would bring up IE.
  3. No (additional) security holes would be created by this app.
  4. Preferably, no security holes would be used benignly by this app.

I suppose that #2 could be handle by a WinSript that would launch the server, then launch a webbrowser with the appropriate link ...

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Then there are Damian modules.... *sigh* ... that's not about being less-lazy -- that's about being on some really good drugs -- you know, there is no spoon. - flyingmoose

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Re: Re: Re: Browsers as stand-alone UI
by halley (Prior) on Apr 07, 2004 at 18:20 UTC
    Nothing wrong with your requirements, and nothing that is incompatible with "run your own web service."
    1. Copy perl scripts and data files to this location, and make a link on the desktop that launches the main perl script. The main script can adjust @INC to use its own private stash of modules.
    2. A perl script can bring up the user's IE with a simple statement: system("start/b  http://localhost:2345/").
    3. If your web service only accepts connections originating from localhost, it's not going to open up problems on the LAN or internet.
    4. I haven't suggested you exploit any vulnerability to implement this.

    It would be harder to decide when to stop, since the user's free to wander off and browse other pages, or close the IE session.

    Update: Look into HTTP::Daemon for a start, but that's only one option. I'm sure there's others.

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    [ e d @ h a l l e y . c c ]

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      Bear in mind though that any machine that allows ssh connections will also allows users to connect to any port as if they were on the local machine and tunnel it to their remote machine. They will need an ssh login though.

      Probably not a problem but it might still be worth having a username and password prompt on the web interface 'just in case'.

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