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@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ +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). |