Sending command line commands to HipChat

I was presented with a problem today.  How can we send the commands typed from a linux shell, live, to a HipChat.  This document is my attempt to make that happen.

This guide assumes you have hipchat set up.  If you need help with that I wrote a guide at http://www.whiteboardcoder.com/2014/08/hipchat-getting-stared.html

Some research

What, if anything, is out there that can do this?  Or do it in part?

I found three tools

1. Commands.com
2. script
3. bash-preexec

Commands.com

This one seems to fit the bill for the needs we have, but I don't see us using it for a few reasons. One being our big use of HipChat.

https://commands.com/ [1] has tools in Linux and OSX that you can download that allow you to captures your command line outputs.

Here is an example from https://commands.com/monitor-source-code-directory

I am not going to dive into how to set it up, since I am not going to use it myself, I just wanted to make note of it.

Script

Here is another one of those Linux tools I wonder why I have never heard about it. The man page for it can be found at http://linux.die.net/man/1/script [2]

Script will open a new terminal and record all the input and outputs of commands.   It will record it all to a file and you can force it to record on any changes.

Here is a quick example I tried.

>  script filename.txt

And then if I run a few commands in the new terminal

Then exit from the script and cat the new file

> exit   > cat filename.txt

It recorded the entire session.  Even the command prompt.

Use flush to force updates as you type

>  script -f filename.txt

(OK that feature does not work in OSX but does in linux)

This seems like an interesting tool and may be the one I can use to get the job done.

bash-preexec

I found this tool at https://github.com/rcaloras/bash-preexec [3] It’s a tool for bash to give it some tools that the zsh shell has, see this page http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/Functions.html#Hook-Functions [4]

Install this script, from the github repo

>  curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rcaloras/bash-preexec/master/bash-preexec.sh > ~/.bash-preexec.sh

Note:  This script does not work as is on OSX but seems to work fine on Ubuntu.

Add the command to run this to your .bashrc file

Here is a simple command to accomplish this is.

>  echo '[[ -f ~/.bash-preexec.sh ]] && source ~/.bash-preexec.sh' >> ~/.bashrc

Run the following command to add a prexec() command

>  preexec() { echo "just typed $1"; }

Then run a simple command to see it in action

>  echo hi

It worked!

Now how to incorporate it into a script and get it to send messages to HipChat.

Simple Script

I am just going to explore here a little bit and see what I can figure out.

Create a script

>  touch send_commands_to_hipchat.sh   >  chmod u+x send_commands_to_hipchat.sh

Here is my starter script (just to prove it out)

#!/bin/bash initial_commands+="PS1=\"HIPCHAT_MODE::\$PS1\";" initial_commands+="ls -alh;" initial_commands+="du -hs;" bash --init-file <(echo "$initial_commands")

It opens a new bash shell and runs all the initial_commands.  The PS1 command changes the prompt so the user is aware they are in HIPCHAT mode.

If I run it

>  ./send_commands_to_hipchat.sh

I can see the commands ran and I see HIPCHAT_MODE.

More complex script

Here is the second version of the script I came up with.

#!/bin/bash initial_commands+="source ~/.bashrc;" initial_commands+="source ~/.profile;" initial_commands+="PS1=\"HIPCHAT_MODE::\$PS1\";" initial_commands+="echo \"=================================\";" initial_commands+="echo \" \";" initial_commands+="echo \" ENTERING HIPCHAT MODE\";" initial_commands+="echo \" \";" initial_commands+="echo \"=================================\";" initial_commands+="preexec() { echo \"just typed \$1\"; };" bash --init-file <(echo "$initial_commands")

If I run this command

>  ./send_commands_to_hipchat.sh

Then run the following command

>  echo hi

It starts a new bash shell, reloads .bashrc and .profile, prepends "HIPCHAT_MODE::" to the command line prompt,  and sets a preexec() command.

Now whenever a command is run it will run the preexec command listed.  Now I just need to figure out how to use the restful service from HipChat to get it working.

HipChat

 I am going to create a room and a token so I can send message to that room using v2 of the Hipchat RESTful service.   You must be an admin on your HipChat account to do this.

Go to https://www.hipchat.com/

Click Log in

Enter your credentials and click Log In.

Click Launch the Web App

Click Create Room

give it a name, I am calling mine "command line" and click create room.

Go back to your HipChat.com/home (tools)

And click on Group Admin.

Click Rooms.

Open the Command Line room.

Make note of the API ID

In my case 1128937

Think of this as the rooms number

Now get your token (key for the room)

Click on Tokens.

Give the token a name and click Create.

Your token has been made.

Mine is

fRPTle17Oy64efGWey6XYRVZFybiAcO0oyPGq0nu

(I am going to erase this token before I finish this document, to erase one from the tokens page click the trash can to the right of your token)

OK now what do I do with this?

RESTful service

The details for HipChat's room notification RESTful service can be found at

https://www.hipchat.com/docs/apiv2/method/send_room_notification [5]

I found this post showing how to put together a curl for v2 of HipChat https://gist.github.com/danriti/7345074 [6]. 

>  curl -H "Content-type: application/json" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $AUTH_TOKEN" \ -X POST \ -d "{\"color\": \"purple\", \"message_format\": \"text\", \"message\": \"$MESSAGE\"}" \ https://api.hipchat.com/v2/room/$ROOM_ID/notification

Which when you put in my room number and token you get

>  curl -H "Content-type: application/json" -H "Authorization: Bearer fRPTle17Oy64efGWey6XYRVZFybiAcO0oyPGq0nu" -X POST -d "{\"color\": \"yellow\", \"notify\": true, \"message\": \"Test message From Patrick that is yellow\"}"  https://api.hipchat.com/v2/room/1128937/notification

Running this command a few times I see it works!

 Now to incorporate it into my script

Script with HipChat

Here is the script I came up with replace the room_id and token with your own values.  Change the color to the color you want, valid values are yellow, green, red, purple, gray, and random.

room_id=1128937 token="fRPTle17Oy64efGWey6XYRVZFybiAcO0oyPGq0nu" color='purple' initial_commands+="source ~/.bashrc;" initial_commands+="source ~/.profile;" initial_commands+="PS1=\"HIPCHAT_MODE::\$PS1\";" initial_commands+="echo \"=================================\";" initial_commands+="echo \" \";" initial_commands+="echo \" ENTERING HIPCHAT MODE\";" initial_commands+="echo \" \";" initial_commands+="echo \"=================================\";" initial_commands+="preexec() { curl -H \"Content-type: application/json\" -H \"Authorization: Bearer $token\" -X POST -d                 \"{\\\"color\\\": \\\"$color\\\", \\\"notify\\\":  true, \\\"message\\\": \\\"\$1\\\"}\"  https://api.hipchat.com/v2/room/$room_id/      notification; };" bash --init-file <(echo "$initial_commands")

And it works!

If I run this command

>  ./send_commands_to_hipchat.sh

Then run the following command

>  echo hi

It worked!

Hope this helps someone out there :) 

References

[1]        Commands.com web site

                        https://commands.com/

                Accessed 01/2015

[2]        Script Linux Man Page

                        http://linux.die.net/man/1/script

                Accessed 01/2015

[3]        bash-preexec github page

                        https://github.com/rcaloras/bash-preexec

                Accessed 01/2015

[4]        Zsh hook functions

                        http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/Functions.html#Hook-Functions

                Accessed 01/2015

[5]        HipChat Room Notification API

                        https://www.hipchat.com/docs/apiv2/method/send_room_notification

                Accessed 01/2015

[6]        HipChat API v2 - Send a message to a room using cURL

                        https://gist.github.com/danriti/7345074

                Accessed 01/2015