Board Control

Overview

Control and monitor any GNU/Linux or MacOs system from a Web UI using customizable bash commands to do action or display information. This allow to have a quick look on what is going on the system and perform any action on it without having to start a ssh session (Headless board) or interrupt your favorite movie playing (HTPC).

Mostly suited to work over local network on development board (Raspberry Pi / Orange Pi / BeagleBone..) or Linux based HTPC. The webUI can be used from a desktop or a phone.

Mobile (command result cleared)	Desktop (command result display)

Requirements

BoardControl uses Node.js with a few modules. This allow to run it within minutes on any system without having to install and configure a classic web server.

Install Node.js

Please refer to the latest installation guide on Node.js website:
https://nodejs.org/en/download/package-manager/
or check below for Debian and Ubuntu based Linux distributions

Install Node.js 8 (LTS) on Debian and Ubuntu based Linux distributions

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_8.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Alternatively, for Node.js 9 (Current version):

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_9.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Get BoardControl

git clone https://github.com/lexb2/BoardControl.git

Use BoardControl

Start one time as user

node BoardControl/app.js

The following message should be displayed:

"BoardControl started and listening on port 8081"

At this point BoardControl runs with your user rights, it means the commands that required root access won't work.

Automatically run at startup as root

Install Forever globally to allow the program to run continuously. https://www.npmjs.com/package/forever

sudo npm install forever -g

The commands below copy BoardControl in /opt.
All modification of the configuration should be done here.
You can choose another location but if you do so, don't forget to update the APP value in /etc/init.d/boardcontrol to indicate the right path.

sudo cp -R BoardControl/ /opt
sudo cp /opt/BoardControl/boardcontrol /etc/init.d/boardcontrol
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/boardcontrol
sudo update-rc.d boardcontrol defaults
sudo service boardcontrol start

Access BoardControl

Simply browse:
http://localhost:8081
if you installed it locally, or
http://ipAdressOfTheMachine:8081

Configure BoardControl

BoardControl is customisable using the file default.json located in BoardControl/config/.

Some characters need to be escaped for JSON:
" (Double quote) is replaced with "
\ (Backslash) is replaced with \
See https://realguess.net/2016/07/29/escaping-in-json-with-backslash/

commands define the actions that can be done using the UI button.

Field	Description
label	button label display on the website
nickname	internal code of the commands, must be unique, without space or special character
exec	the bash command to execute, result will be shown on website

informations define the information that are always display at the bottom of the webpage.

Field	Description
label	header label
exec	the bash command to execute, result will be shown on website

{
    "config": {
        "listeningPort": 8081,
        "pageTitle": "Board control",
        "commands": [
            {
                "label": "Run my command",
                "nickname": "mycommand",
                "exec": "time"
            },
            {
                "label": "Run my awesome script",
                "nickname": "myscript",
                "exec": "/path/to/my/./script.sh"
            }
        ],
        "informations": [
            {
                "label": "Some information 1",
                "exec": "free -h"
            },
            {
                "label": "Some information 2",
                "exec": "ls /"
            }
        ]
    }
}

After updating the configuration, BoardControl need to be restarted

sudo service boardcontrol restart

Config example

{
    "config": {
        "listeningPort": 8081,
        "pageTitle": "BoardControl",
        "commands": [
            {
                "label": "Shutdown",
                "nickname": "shutdown",
                "exec": "poweroff"
            },
            {
                "label": "Reboot",
                "nickname": "reboot",
                "exec": "reboot"
            },
            {
                "label": "List files",
                "nickname": "ls",
                "exec": "ls /home"
            },
            {
                "label": "Run script",
                "nickname": "myscript",
                "exec": "/path/to/my/./script.sh"
            }
        ],
        "informations": [
            {
                "label": "Disk free space",
                "exec": "df -h | grep 'data\\|root\\|Size'"
            },
            {
                "label": "Free ram",
                "exec": "free -h"
            },            
            {
                "label": "Top cpu process",
                "exec": "ps -eo pid,comm,%cpu,%mem --sort=-%cpu | head -n 5"
            },  
            {
                "label": "Uptime",
                "exec": "uptime"
            },
            {
                "label": "Public IP address",
                "exec": "curl -s http://checkip.dyndns.org/ | sed 's/[a-zA-Z<>/ :]//g'"
            },
            {
                "label": "Local IP address",
                "exec": "ifconfig | grep -E \"([0-9]{1,3}\\.){3}[0-9]{1,3}\" | grep -v 127.0.0.1 | awk '{ print $2 }' | cut -f2 -d: | head -n1"
            }

        ]
    }
}

Disclaimer

This software comes with no warranty, it doesn't feature any authentification system and run as root as per installation guide below. Please use only on a trusted local network and do not expose this server to the internet, else anyone could take control your machine (hopefully only with the commands you defined).

Uninstall

sudo update-rc.d boardcontrol remove
sudo rm /etc/init.d/boardcontrol

And simply delete BoardControl folder (in /opt as per installation guide)