Mozilla WebDev recently got two big wall mounted screens for our nefarious uses. We decided they should show some useful information, and be a source of irc-based mayem. This is a Node.js app that starts an IRC bot and a HTTP server, including a Socket.IO layer.

The main page served to the browser opens a Socket.IO listener, and waits for events from the server. The bot triggers events when the denizens of IRC tell it URLs of images, websites, and hilarious Youtube videos. It relays these to the front end. The front end then dynamically loads the content onto the display. Content is loaded, without refreshing the page, via iframes or other methods.

A second page is provided, called Hydra. Hydra will take URL parameters for 'x' and 'y', and then build a grid of the main page tiled across the page. This is useful if you want to give the impression of multiple screens on a single monitor.

CrimsonTwins is a node app, so you'll need a copy of node in your path. Pull down the repo, install dependencies with npm, edit your configuration, and start the process. The whole process looks like:

git clone https://github.com/mythmon/crimsontwins.git
cd crimsontwins
npm install
cp config.json-dist cp config.json
vi config.json
node crimsontwins.js

Dependencies are listed in package.json. You can install everything automatically with:

> npm install

You'll need to configure things. Copy config.json-dist to config.json, and edit it appropriately. The options you can set in this file are:

• resetUrls - An array of urls for the default rotation.
• resetTime - The time it takes to automatically cycle a screen.
• screens - An array of screens to automatically create.
• web
  • host - The host to bind to.
  • port - The port to bind to.

Warning! This file may be overwritten at run time. Things that can change are currently limited to the resetUrls and screens, which are editable from the web interface.

The main file is crimsontwins.js. Run that like

> node crimsontwins.js

If you encounter warn - error raised: Error: listen EACCES, you probably set a port you don't have access to listen on, such as ports below 1024. You may need to escalate privileges of the user running the account and execute it as:

> sudo node crimsontwins.js

You should now have a running crimsontwins instance.

Make a feature branch and hack away. When you're ready, open a pull request. Use make test to run tests locally.

We've bundled an IRC bot for issuing commands to the server. The bot is a separate Node.js app, located at /ext/chat.js, and is not required to run or use the crimsontwins server. It may eventually graduate to its own repo.

The bot doesn't read from the same config file as the main app. You'll need to set some environment variables:

• CT_IRC_SERVER - IRC server name
• CT_IRC_NICK - IRC bot's nick
• CT_IRC_CHANNELS - comma-separated list of IRC channels
• CT_API_URL - Crimsontwins URL

If your IRC server requires a password, set CT_IRC_SERVER_PASSWORD as well.

Here's an example:

> export CT_IRC_SERVER=irc.server.org
> export CT_IRC_NICK=crimsontwins
> export CT_IRC_CHANNELS='#foo,#bar'
> export CT_API_URL=http://myct.example.com
> node ext/chat.js

Your CrimsonTwins instance will expose an API that can be directly queried by external tools and services.

GET /api/ping

Returns "pong". Useful as a heartbeat monitor or general sanity check.

POST /api/sendurl

params: timeout    - an integer for how long to keep this on the page
        screenName - the name of the screen that should display the content
                     (optional)
        url        - the url to display (http and all)

Send a particular url to a particular CT screen

GET /api/config

Returns the current configuration of the server. This is probably only useful for debugging.

GET /api/staticpath

Returns the file system path of crimsontwins's static assets. This is probably only useful for debugging.

GET /api/env

Returns the crimsontwin's process environment. This is probably only useful for debugging.