WebPager Usage Notes

© M. Gallant 02/12/2001
WebPager is a standalone Java application for win32 requiring a client JVM (Java Virtual Machine) version 1.1+ to execute. There are two equivalent executables: webpager.exe is a win32 executable, which can be run on any win32 platform with IE4 or higher (which provides the JVM). To use, download webpager.exe, save in a local folder, create a simple text file called urlist.txt containing a list of web-page addresses (one per line). Start by double-click the webpager.exe icon. To view the digital signature, right click and select Properties/Digital Signatures/

webpager.jar is a JAR (Java ARchive) which can be run directly on systems with Sun J2SE1.2+ installed. To use, download webpager.jar, save in a local folder, create a simple text file called urlist.txt containing a list of web-page addresses (one per line). Start execution by either double-clicking, or by executing:

java -jar webpager.jar

Configuration

LOCAL mode: When Webpager is launched, a GUI is displayed, which is initially in the LOCAL mode of operation (i.e. will ignore remote connections). The localhost IP address and corresponding fully-qualified domain name is conveniently displayed in the lower part of the window. A green light flashes in the title section of Webpager when a url is being loaded locally. The status TextArea at the bottom should indicate that the WebPager server has started successfully. On startup, webpager looks for a file urlist.txt in the current directory, and if present, will parse the text file for simple url entries (one per line). These urls are loaded into the application and are available via the slide buttons (Forward etc..), or via the drop-down list "Select a URL:". A new list of urls can be loaded at any time with the "Load List" button. Alternatively, urls can be loaded in manually by entering the url into the "Show URL" text field. This field also serves to indicate the url of the current slide selected. The AutoShow button starts the timed slide show presentation (which runs through all the slides just once). The "Time:" text-field specifies the slide timing in milliseconds. The "Slide" label indicates the current slide number (starting at 0).

REMOTE mode: Clicking the MODE button toggles from LOCAL to REMOTE mode. In REMOTE mode, a win32 machine connected to the Internet, or an intranet, can "page" one or many win32 machines, provided the machines are in remote mode. A red light flashes in the title section of Webpager when a url is being remotely received. Initially, all remote hosts are not trusted, except for those in the trustlist.txt file, which, if found, is read and parsed at startup. On receiving a WebPager connection, an untrusted remote host causes a security dialog to be displayed:

The user has a choice to Accept Session in which case WebPager saves the remote machine address for the session (until WebPager is closed). Choosing Accept Once will not store the remote host address, and the dialog will appear again for each subsequent connection. Selecting Reject does nothing except log the access attempt. To include a new remote host name in the trustlist.txt file, the file must be manually edited. Navigation is exactly as in LOCAL mode.

RECIPIENTS: The Remote Host: text field specifies the target machine host IP address (or dns name). In addition, a "multi-peer" recipient list can be specified in a file named tolist.txt. If a file with this name is found at startup in the current directory, it is loaded and parsed as one remote host name (IP or domain name) per line. In remote mode, all recipients on the list are "paged". In REMOTE mode, the sending machine receives status information including the url sent and remote machine name selected, and any problems associated with finding the target machine, or making that connection. The recipient machine(s) receive status information including the sending machine host name and remote port and url sent. The ClearTrust button clears the internal session trusted-list of remote hosts. The ShowTrust button lists the trusted remote hosts in the log TextArea. Recipient machines can receive connections from any host (running WebPager) at any time. A recipient machine in *LOCAL* mode will log access attempts, but will not respond.

Technical Details: The client IP address or host can be displayed via:


Note that when WebPager starts, the status area should display a confirmation line indicating that the server has started properly. The port used by WebPager is 7171. If there is another service running on this port, WebPager will not execute properly. To examine all the running services on Win95, NT4 or Win2000 run:
netstat -a