This article aims to fill up the gap by implementing oAuth using PHP . So before starting, lets check the perquisites for proper working of this article .

System Perquisites:

A Linux Box

PHP5 with php-curl ( php5-curl ) installed

A working Internet Connection

The first step involve in having a oAuth Twitter app is to register your application with twitter.

Steps for Registering Twitter Application :

1. Visit http://dev.twitter.com
2. Click on Register Your App Link
3. Fill the Form with App Name, Description, Website link ( if you dont have any link put your profile link instead ), Organization
4. Select Application Type: “Client”
5. Select Default Access type: “Read & Write”
6. Read/listen captcha and click on register application
7. Accept the Terms and Conditions of Twitter API usage

Next step involve extracting information regarding your application which will be needed by PHP script. Here are steps for extracting information :

1. visit http://dev.twitter.com/apps
2. Select your application
3. Copy/Note Down the following informationa) Consumer keyb) Consumer secret
4. Now click on “My Access Token” link
5. Copy/Note Down the following informationa) Access Token (oauth_token)b) Access Token Secret (oauth_token_secret)

Now users need to download the oAuth PHP library ( We have used @abraham’s Twitter OAuth library for PHP )

Download @abraham’s Twitter OAuth library for PHP from here

Extract twitteroauth/ directory to a specified folder

now create a tweet.php file with following code, in the specified folder

Source code

<?php
 
require_once('twitteroauth/twitteroauth.php');
 
$ckey = "Place_Your_Consumer_key_here";
$csecret = "Place_Your_Consumer_Secret_here";
 
$oauthtoken = "Place_Your_oauth_token_here";
$oauthtokensecret = "Place_Your_oauth_token_Secret_here ";
 
$message = exec('uptime'); //Command to be executed
 
$connection = new TwitterOAuth ($ckey ,$csecret , $ oauthtoken , $ oauthtokensecret );
 
$connection->post('statuses/update', array('status' => $message));
 
?>

Replace the variables above and save the file

Now test the script by passing following command

Source code

php /path/to/script/tweet.php

If everything is running fine, then users can copy paste the command in cronjob. After this, the machine will tweet its uptime regularly

Please let me know if you are facing any problem with this script by leaving your comment(s)

Source Code

In the sample code below, I’ve used  DNAIndia Latest News Feed
Here is the code for GNOME Desktop Environment
Download it From Here in a textt File

#!/bin/bash
mkdir -p /tmp/dnadata
cd /tmp/dnadata
rm -rf news-latest*
wget http://www.dnaindia.com/services/rss/news-latest.xml
if [[ "$(echo  $(md5sum news-latest.xml | sed -e 's:news-latest.xml::g'))" == "$(echo  $(md5sum check.xml | sed -e 's:check.xml::g'))" ]]
then
echo “same news”

else

cat news-latest.xml | grep “pubDate” | sed -e ‘s:<pubDate>::g’ | sed -e ‘s:</pubDate>::g’ | head -n 3 | tail -n 1 > 1
cat news-latest.xml | grep “title” | sed -e ‘s:<title>::g’ | sed -e ‘s:</title>::g’ | head -n 3 | tail -n 1 > 2
cat news-latest.xml | grep “description” | sed -e ‘s:<description>::g’ | sed -e ‘s:</description>::g’ | head -n 3 | tail -n 1 > 3
zenity –display :0 –title=”$(echo $(cat 2))” –info –text=”$(echo $(cat 3)) n n n n News as on $(echo $(cat 1))”
fi
cat news-latest.xml > check.xml

Here Is Coding For KDE

Download it From Here in a text File

#!/bin/bash
mkdir -p /tmp/dnadata
cd /tmp/dnadata
rm -rf news-latest*
wget http://www.dnaindia.com/services/rss/news-latest.xml
if [[ "$(echo  $(md5sum news-latest.xml | sed -e 's:news-latest.xml::g'))" == "$(echo  $(md5sum check.xml | sed -e 's:check.xml::g'))" ]]
then
echo “same news”

else
cat news-latest.xml | grep “pubDate” | sed -e ‘s:<pubDate>::g’ | sed -e ‘s:</pubDate>::g’ | head -n 3 | tail -n 1 > 1
cat news-latest.xml | grep “title” | sed -e ‘s:<title>::g’ | sed -e ‘s:</title>::g’ | head -n 3 | tail -n 1 > 2
cat news-latest.xml | grep “description” | sed -e ‘s:<description>::g’ | sed -e ‘s:</description>::g’ | head -n 3 | tail -n 1 > 3
kdialog –display :0 –title=”$(echo $(cat 2))” –msgbox=”$(echo $(cat 3)) n n n n News as on $(echo $(cat 1))”
fi
cat news-latest.xml > check.xml

___
Please Note : As My Linux Box Is out of Disk Space . I’m Unable to check the KDE Script . But I hope it will run Fine . If any one can Confirm please Drop a Comment
___

• Save the Above Script in a File and add it to cron job

To add a cron job use following command
[You need to know VI or VIM for this]

crontab -eu username

replace username with your desired username
and add following entry [ which will check every one minute ]

*/1 * * * * /bin/bash   /path/to/the/file/script &> /dev/null

The above command is set to execute every minute.

Here is Screen Shot of The Script

Breaking News Aleart ScreenShot

Short Description about the Script

This script downloads the specified RSS feed and checks against any old versions of the same. If a change is observed , the script extracts the relevant information from the feed and sends the output to different files. These are then displayed using the ALERT command.
PS. This script needs an active Internet connection for its successful execution. (Duh!!)

You can use any other news feed for your Breaking News Alert Box/Live News Ticker on your Linux Machine. If you’re stuck with that or need help/guidance with regard to the code, kindly drop a comment with your original email, so that I could personally respond to you.

Special Thanks To Aravind Jose T. for helping me to pep-up this post !!

#!/bin/bash curl -u username:password -d status=”$*” http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml

Replace the above user name and password with your own credential Step Three Set a cron job [ cron job will run your script after every specific time ] to set cron job just log into superuser mode and pass following command [ this command checked on Redhat,Fedora Core and Suse]

#crontab -eu root

and after that command add the following lines into your cron job

*/10 * * * * /bin/sh /path/to/your/twitter/script.sh My PC uptime is $(uptime)

If you need any sort of help or to get a customized output please feel free to leave comment and save the cron job and restart the cron job To restart cron job in REDHAT and FEDORA CORE

# service crond restart

For Suse [ I've tested this on suse 11 ]

# service cron restart

So now Your PC will update its status over twitter every 10 mins to change. If your want your PC to send his update every one hour use following

* */1 * * * /bin/sh /path/to/your/twitter/script.sh My PC uptime is $(uptime)

The Following Expectation have been taken from the author to the reader !!!

1)You might be running Fedora , Redhat or Suse [ altough I've not tested on ubuntu / debian the process may be same ]

2)You know basic vi / vim operation !! you need this knowledge to know how to save a file !!

3)you know basic of crontab . BTW if you dont know I will explain it just leave your comments

4)User should not abuse the service of twitter for this !!

5)User Will add a cron job for deleting root mails too or have any other solutions [ you will get a mail in inbox everytime when a cronjob is executed ]

Special Thanks to Anoj Ramaswamy Sundar for http://anojrs.blogspot.com/2008/03/twittering-from-command-line.html This is base of the whole article without which it was not possible to write this article apart from getting only uptime you can even know your server status

*/10 * * * * /bin/sh /path/to/your/twitter/script.sh $(service mysql status)

above will publish mysql status [ replace mysql with mysqld in fedora and redhat ]

Why to use Yum if I can install RPM using rpm command?
Well if you want to install RPM you have to make sure that its dependencies are also installed . But this is not in the case of YUM you can simply install package with its dependencies. YUM take care of your all install things . Also update feature is not available in the rpm installation method but it is available in yum.

Here are some key features of “Yum”:
• Multiple Repositories
• Simple config file
• Correct dependency calculation
• Fast operation
• rpm-consistent behavior
• comps.xml group support, including multiple repository groups
• Simple interface

Starting With Creating Your Own Repository [Server Side Configuration]

Step First : Check Prequisites
-Have Your Distro CD/DVD

-Check if you have free space on your Hard Disk or not [Total space required vary from Distro to Distro]

Step Two : Copy Disc to Hard Disk
First mount your CD/DVD and copy it to hard disk
cp -avr /cd/dvd/mount/point/ /destination/directory/

Step Three : Intalling CreateRepo Package
Now go to your directory where you copied the files and search for createrepo-*.rpm file * may be different from version to version and system architecture
Install that rpm using rpm command
install using following command
rpm -ivh –aid createrepo-*.rpm

Repeat this step with your all you cd .
Note:- If you want install Repository on your network thrugh ftp or http upload in their respective default directories i.e /var/ftp/pub for ftp server and /var/www/html for http server.

Step four: Run createrepo
Go to the directory where you copied the file and run the createrepo command
createrepo -v .
[please note that “.” {dot} after that command as we are in present directory ]

Now you have done all thing.
Now we will see Client side setting

Client Side Setting For YUM

Create a repo file in /etc/yum.repos.d/ directory [ you can name anything to ur file make sure a .repo extension is added later on]
vim /etc/yum.repos.d/my.repo

add following date in that file

[Myrepo]
name=Any name you want to put
baseurl=file:///destination/directory/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0

The first line is alias given for your repository . This help to indicate/find that from which repository the package is available.
Second line is name which you can put any thing
Next comes baseurl
base url supports different protocols like file:// ftp:// httpd:// etc. if you are running repository from local pc then give absolute path after file:// . for ftp give ftp://server_ip_or_domain/pub_dir_or_accessable_dir or http://server_ip_or_domain/dir
next line is enabled this specify if yum should enable that repo server for installtion or not 1 is for enable and 0 is for disable
gpgcheck is for checking gpg key. as I don’t required it so I disabled it if you enabled it then you hav to add one more line after that
gpgkey=/your/path/to/key

after this save that repo file and run following command
yum clean all [ will clean yum database ]
yum list [will list the files / packages available on that directory ]

If you find some difficulty in using it please feel free to contact us

Note:- SElinux or Firewall may conflict sometimes [ for ftp and http service ]
Note:- I used RHEL server 5 edition . This process is same for RHEL 4,5 FC [versions I don’t know]

Linux is a UNIX like Operating system available under GNU Project. More detail on its History and Other things can be found at Wikipedia.

Main aim of this blog is to provide information on Linux to newbie’s as well as to techies. The main source of inspiration for me is Mr. Sathyajith Bhat . This website is being inaugurated by him on Sunday, 04th of May 2008.

I’d also like to thank Mr. Rajesh Pandey for suggesting me the Title for our Blog i.e “Linux For All”. We would like to thanks again to Mr Sathyajith for Giving us cool Description as “Making Linux Usable For All From Newbies To Techies ”.

Finally last but not least you will find this blog really useful and resourceful .

Hoping for all your kindness and mails.

Kunal Gautam
Site Admin
Tech-Nologic Networks