Add the initial versionHEADmaster

Error handling can be improved, probably audio retrieval in the JS
part can be better as well, but it generally works, and this should
suffice as the initial version.

1 files changed, 41 insertions, 0 deletions

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+bwchat, a basic web chat
+
+
+A simple chat featuring textual messages, file upload, audio streams.
+
+The aim is to implement that functionality using the simplest
+necessary technologies and relatively little code, so that (hopefully)
+it works sufficiently well, is readily usable by casual computer
+users, with commonly installed web browsers, and is easy to deploy.
+
+Written in C, optionally uses libfcgi. Does not include features
+beyond the essentials required for communication, assumes cooperating
+participants.
+
+The textual chat, file upload, and audio stream consumption work
+without JavaScript, making the basic chat functionality available from
+simpler web browsers (e.g., lynx, w3m) and audio streams available via
+audio players, while audio stream upload depends on JavaScript. When
+JS is available, AJAX is used for message sending and retrieval. The
+supported audio streams are Ogg with the Opus codec.
+
+The chat consists of bwchat-server, a daemon that keeps the state and
+organizes clients, and bwchat-cgi, a (Fast)CGI program handling
+individual HTTP requests. Additional clients can be implemented with
+the bwchat.h header, including those for interfaces other than CGI.
+
+
+Building, setup, and running instructions: retrieve the sources
+(possibly by cloning the repository), ensure that nginx, spawn-fcgi,
+libfcgi (-dev), autotools, and a C compiler (e.g., gcc or clang) are
+installed, run autoreconf -i, create missing files, use the generated
+configure script, make. Run bwchat-server on its own, and bwchat-cgi
+with spawn-fcgi, with a suitable fastcgi nginx configuration. Place
+chat.js into a suitable directory served by nginx. Generally it is a
+good idea to run such services with reduced privileges, possibly
+chrooted or otherwise restricted. SCRIPT_NAME's basename should be
+"chat" to render the main page.
+
+Alternatively, use a different web server, different FastCGI runner
+(or plain CGI), build the programs manually, skip chat.js, tweak the
+runtime options (see --help or man pages).