epsimatic / winthing

Remotely control Windows through MQTT.

WinThing

A modular background service that makes Windows remotely controllable through MQTT. For home automation and Internet of Things.

Requirements

Java SE 8 or Java SE 11 is required on your local machine. Other Java versions untested.

Compilation

Maven is required to build Java application. For convenience the Maven build file contains execution to produce a Windows executable.

mvn clean package
mvn package

Running

Download the Windows executable and run it:

winthing-1.3.0.exe

or you can execute the Java file:

java -jar winthing-1.3.0.jar

1.3.0 represents the application version and is changing with each update. Feel free to rename the file to winthing.exe to keep the same name.

Tray icon, console

After launching a tray icon will appear on the taskbar. You can click on the icon to open console log or you can quit WinThing.

Configuration

Configuration parameters can be passed from command line or they can be placed in configuration files in the working directory from where you launch WinThing.

Property	Description	Default
broker	URL of the MQTT broker to use	127.0.0.1:1883
username	Username used when connecting to MQTT broker	mqtt
password	Password used when connecting to MQTT broker	mqtt
clientid	Client ID to present to the broker	WinThing
reconnect	Time interval between connection attempts in seconds	5

Command line parameters

Example how to pass parameters from command line:

java -Dbroker="127.0.0.1:1883" -jar winthing-1.2.0.jar

winthing.conf

WinThing will look for this file in the current working directory (directory from where you launched WinThing). Create this file and put desired parameters into it.

Example file:

broker = "127.0.0.1:1883"
username = "mqtt"
password = "somesecret"

winthing.ini

By default WinThing executes any command it receives in the system/commands/run topic. Create this file in the current working directory to whitelist only specific commands. The file contains an unique string identifier (used as payload in the MQTT message, see below) and path to executable.

Example file:

notepad = "c:/windows/system32/notepad.exe"
adobe = "c:\\program files\\adobe\\reader.exe"

Note you can use slash ' / ' or double backslash ' \\ ' as path separator.

Logging

You can open application log by clicking on the tray icon. To log into winthing.log file in the current working directory run WinThing with the -debug parameter.

winthing.exe -debug

Supported messages

The payload of all messages is either empty or a valid JSON element (possibly a primitive, like a single integer). This means, specifically, that if an argument is supposed to be a single string, it should be sent in double quotes.

Example valid message payloads:

• 123
• true
• "notepad.exe"
• [1024, 768]
• ["notepad.exe", "C:\\file.txt", "C:\\"] (note that JSON string requires escaped backslash)

Broadcast status

System

Topic: winthing/system/online
Payload: state:boolean
QoS: 2
Persistent: yes

True when WinThing is running, false otherwise. WinThing registers a "last will" message with the broker to notify clients when WinThing disconnects.

Commands

System

Topic: winthing/system/commands/shutdown
Payload: -

Trigger immediate system shutdown.

---

Topic: winthing/system/commands/reboot
Payload: -

Trigger immediate system reboot.

---

Topic: winthing/system/commands/suspend
Payload: -

Trigger immediate system suspend.

---

Topic: winthing/system/commands/hibernate
Payload: -

Trigger immediate system hibernate.

---

Topic: winthing/system/commands/run
Payload: [command:string, arguments:string, workingDirectory:string]

Run a command. Arguments and working directory are optional (empty string and null by default).
If whitelist is enabled, only the command as unique identifier is required. The identifier is checked against the whitelist file (see whitelist.ini above).

---

Topic: winthing/system/commands/open
Payload: uri:string

Opens an URI, like a website in a browser or a disk location in a file browser.

Desktop

Topic: winthing/desktop/commands/close_active_window
Payload: -

Closes currently active window.

---

Topic: winthing/desktop/commands/set_display_sleep
Payload: displaySleep:boolean

Puts the display to sleep (on true) or wakes it up (on false).

Keyboard

Topic: winthing/keyboard/commands/press_keys
Payload: [key:string...]

Simulates pressing of given set of keyboard keys. Keys are specified by name. List of available key names and aliases can be found here.

ATI Radeon display driver

Topic: winthing/radeon/commands/set_best_resolution
Payload: -

Sets the screen to the best available resolution.

---

Topic: winthing/radeon/commands/set_resolution
Payload: [widthInPixels:integer, heightInPixels:integer]

Sets the screen to the given resolution.

License

Copyright 2015-2016 Mikołaj Siedlarek <[e-mail]>

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this software except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.