Upgrading the Command & Update System

I’m thinking of how I might enhance the commands and update system.  

It would be nice if one could queue up commands to run, and have the sensor run them whenever they get online to check.  

To this end, I had a few ideas.  The sensors could check a folder through a http URL every x min, and if it finds a file there, with its host name as the filename, it would check the date stamp inside.  If the date stamp is newer than its local “Last Ran” date stamp, it would run the commands inside and then put the current time as its local “Last Run” date stamp.  

This could be further enhanced by having the sensor itself connect back to a “Server” where the Control Center software is running to say it ran the commands or even remain connected for future communications.  The URL to connect to would be included in the http file the sensor initially looks at. 

This has a few advantages.  By changing the URL or IP in the http file, sensors would start connecting to you in minutes, also no ports need to be open to have the sensors run commands, and the sensors only need to be online long enough to run said commands. If you do want to control them in real time, ports only have to be setup / forwarded to the Control Center PC.  Once setup, just turn it on, load the KootNet Sensors – PC Control Center and wait for sensors to check in. Once they have, control them as normal through the program.  

This could really be useful in areas with spotty internet connections.  Or a way to que up a bunch of tasks for mostly offline sensors.  A few things that could be useful include, sending the database to a online storage location, changing how or what is being recorded or getting it to update.  Get them online for 10 min or however long the commands will take (Plus the x time it waits to checkin), and it’s done.  

This will DEFINITELY be an undertaking…. I might make this a whole separate program, just for reverse connection management… that way there are multiple ways to manage the units, depending on your needs, and multiple ways to try and connect, if something goes wrong.  I’ll see once I get started and figure out how its all going to fit together.  

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