BlabberMouth

BlabberMouth is a software hub for various types of connections. The typical use case is a set of devices that must be communicate to each other. BlabberMouth connects to each device, and when a device sends data to BlabberMouth, the latter sends to it to all the other devices.

Usage

./blabbermouth <-s SIZE> [-f FILE]... [STREAM]...
./blabbermouth scan

data repeater on various types of connections.

operational modes

BlabbermMuth has two operational modes: streaming and scanning.

Streaming

In streaming mode, BlabberMouth connects to each STREAM passed as command line parameter and/or in FILE. Every time a message is sent by one of the peers over a stream, BlabberMouth collects the data and sends it over the other streams.

Each message managed by BlabberMouth must be exactly SIZE bytes long, so the -s option is required.

The syntax for stream descriptors is: ID:TYPE:VERBOSE:DATA, where ID is a unique identifier for the stream; TYPE is a case-sensitive string such as tcp, udp, bt, or xbee; VERBOSE is a flag (0/1) to establish whether BlabberMouth should log when sending/receiving messages on the console; and DATA is a colon-separated string of fields that specify how to connect to the stream.

Supported stream descriptors:

ID:tcp:VERBOSE:SERVER:PORT   A TCP connection to SERVER on PORT
ID:udp:VERBOSE:SERVER:PORT   A UDP connection to SERVER on PORT
ID:bt:VERBOSE:rfcomm:CHANNEL An RFComm Bluetooth connection on CHANNEL

Options:

-s SIZE | --size SIZE   The size (in bytes) of a message
-f FILE | --file FILE   A file containing one stream descriptor per line

Scanning

In scanning mode, Blabbermouth looks for Bluetooth devices to connect to and prints a list of available devices. BlueZ must be installed for Bluetooth to be supported.

Testing

To make sure BlabberMouth works, you could try the following tests.

TCP connection tests

Open three terminals. In the first write:

nc -l 12345

In the second write:

nc -l 12346

In the third write:

./blabbermouth -s 5 1:tcp:1:localhost:12345 2:tcp:1:localhost:12346

Now type a five-character string in either of the first two terminals, and press enter. The other terminal where nc is running should show what was typed in the other terminal.

UDP connection tests

Open three terminals. In the first write:

nc -ul 12345

In the second write:

nc -ul 12346

In the third write:

./blabbermouth -s 5 1:udp:1:localhost:12345 2:udp:1:localhost:12346

Now type a five-character string in either of the first two terminals, and press enter. The other terminal where nc is running should show what was typed in the other terminal.

TCP/UDP connection tests

Open three terminals. In the first write:

nc -l 12345

In the second write:

nc -ul 12346

In the third write:

./blabbermouth -s 5 1:tcp:1:localhost:12345 2:udp:1:localhost:12346

Now type a five-character string in either of the first two terminals, and press enter. The other terminal where nc is running should show what was typed in the other terminal.