[jcifs] Winpopup

[Christopher R. Hertel]

I have posted pointers to information on this in the past.  There was some 
discussion as well.  Please see the archives.

Some things to note:
- On older Windows systems, there is a NetBIOS messenger service which 
  must be running in order to receive messages.  This service registers 
  two NetBIOS names:
    user<03>
    machine<03>
  Where 'user' is the username of the logged on user and 'machine' is the 
  NetBIOS machine name of the system.

  If the messenger service is running, it will *receive* messages sent to 
  either of those names.  The problem is that the messages won't be 
  displayed (on Windows systems) unless the WinPopup application is also 
  running.  WinPopup runs on the Windows desktop and does the job of 
  actually displaying the received messages.

- On newer Windows systems there is a different service that handles this 
  type of message.  The new service (which may also be called "the 
  messenger service"--I'm not sure) is based on MS-RPC.  The client (the 
  system sending the message) must first connect to the DCE endpoint 
  resolution service on port 135.  That service (as I understand it) maps 
  the function call request to the correct function in the correct DLL.

  The end result is that the client winds up making a function call on the
  server machine, and that function call pops up a window on the Windows
  desktop.

  I *believe* that this works on NT4, W2K, XP-Pro, and W3K.  I'm not sure,
  though, because I have not tested it.  I also believe that these RPC
  calls are not supported by W9x and WMe.  I have no idea about XP-Home.
  This is all guesswork, though, since I have not tested any of this.

- I know of no tool for *nix platforms which will receive either type of 
  popup message.  There *may* be a receiver for the older type, but I
  doubt there's one for the newer type.

You could write a receiver for the older (NetBIOS) type of messenger 
service if you wanted.  The problem is that you would also need to write 
some sort of NBT name service daemon as well.  In order to participate as 
a *service* in an NBT environment (and the message receiver is a service) 
you need to actively participate in the NBT name service.  That means 
registering names (with WINS, if there's a WINS server), defending them, 
and responding to name queries as well.

Hope that's useful.

Chris -)-----

On Thu, Jul 03, 2003 at 05:05:29PM +0200, Sascha Teifke wrote:
> I am trying to do the same.
> Perhaps we should work together...
> 
> Sascha
> 
> Damian Minkov wrote:
> 
> >I have a question which may be was asked before, but
> >Is there a way to send winpopup messages to Hosts running samba or
> >Messenger-Service(in Windows)? And is there a way to receive messages of
> >this type?
> >Can you give me a clue how can I do this with or without jcifs.
> >10x in advance
> >
> >
> > 
> >
> 
> 

-- 
"Implementing CIFS - the Common Internet FileSystem" ISBN: 013047116X
Samba Team -- http://www.samba.org/     -)-----   Christopher R. Hertel
jCIFS Team -- http://jcifs.samba.org/   -)-----   ubiqx development, uninq.
ubiqx Team -- http://www.ubiqx.org/     -)-----   crh at ubiqx.mn.org
OnLineBook -- http://ubiqx.org/cifs/    -)-----   crh at ubiqx.org