"Web App" interface for managing a classroom of Raspberry Pi computers. Simplifies and greatly speeds up the process of running the most common remote management tasks in the classroom - or at least the tasks I found myself running 10 to 20 times per class! It basically acts a single-click launcher for applications and makes it much easier to interact directly with coding students in their IDE. Currently supports:
- Ping
- VNC Remote Desktop (Full Access and View-Only)
- SSH Remote Shell
- SFTP File Transfer
- Browse public HTML folder
- Python (previously Bash) script set to run every minute as a cronjob
- Creates JSON file with info about Raspberry Pi client (e.g. hostname, user, MAC address)
- Passes JSON data to PHP script on server
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Web server PHP script listens for JSON data from Raspberry Pi clients
- Received data saved to local file named according to the MAC address of sender
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admin.php:
- Admin Page with dynamic table of up-to-date details about Raspberry Pi clients
- Contains details (e.g. hostname, user, IP address, last time seen) and clickable icons for common tasks (i.e. ping, ssh, vnc, sftp)
- Icons trigger JS functions when clicked that send data through WebSocket to Node.js server
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Node.js server:
- Uses WebSocket to listen for socket connections from admin.php in browser
- Executes commands on server (e.g. ping, ssh, etc.) in response to data received through socket
- Some tasks (e.g. ping, ssh) launch a new terminal window and run in that window
- Some tasks (e.g. VNC, Filezilla SFTP) launch their own application window
- SSH configured for RSA key login
- RealVNC config file dynamically generated to allow login using stored password
