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Scripts

Sending Growl messages over a network with Python

6-6-12 – This script is really old and may not work with current versions of Growl. There are some good libraries to choose from and I’d recommend looking at them instead.

Updated 12-4-10 – minor code updates
I have yet another script. This one is actually my first one in Python, which is kind of sad after all the good things I’ve heard about the language. This time I didn’t actually write the entire script – I simply added to one that had already been written to give it more functionality.

The original script was found here: http://the.taoofmac.com/space/Projects/netgrowl and almost all credit goes to it’s author, as I only added a little bit more to it.

What this version does is send a Growl message over UDP to a Mac (running Growl and configured to listen for incoming notifications) using Python. I thought this was really cool – I could script my remote Linux machines (or whatever OS) to send messages to my main Mac.

What I added was the ability to have command line arguments so that it would be easier to change options on the fly and also easier to script.

Running ./netgrowl.py -h will give you the following:

#!/usr/bin/env python

# Updated 12-4-2010
# Altered 1-17-2010 - Tanner Stokes - www.tannr.com
# Added support for command line arguments

# ORIGINAL CREDITS
# """Growl 0.6 Network Protocol Client for Python"""
# __version__ = "0.6.3"
# __author__ = "Rui Carmo (http://the.taoofmac.com)"
# __copyright__ = "(C) 2004 Rui Carmo. Code under BSD License."
# __contributors__ = "Ingmar J Stein (Growl Team), John Morrissey (hashlib patch)"

try:
  import hashlib
  md5_constructor = hashlib.md5
except ImportError:
  import md5
  md5_constructor = md5.new

import struct
# needed for command line arguments
import sys
import getopt

from socket import AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, socket

GROWL_UDP_PORT=9887
GROWL_PROTOCOL_VERSION=1
GROWL_TYPE_REGISTRATION=0
GROWL_TYPE_NOTIFICATION=1

def main(argv):

    # default to sending to localhost
    host = "localhost"
    # default title
    title = "Title"
    # default description
    description = "Description"
    # default priority
    priority = 0
    # default stickiness
    sticky = False

    # if no arguments are given, show usage
    if(len(argv) < 1):
        usage()

    try:
        opts, args = getopt.getopt(argv, "hH:t:d:p:s")
    except getopt.GetoptError:
        usage()
    for opt, arg in opts:
        if opt in ("-h"):
            usage()
        elif opt in ("-H"):
            host = arg
        elif opt in ("-t"):
            title = arg
        elif opt in ("-d"):
            description = arg
        elif opt in ("-p"):
            # acceptable values: -2 to 2
            priority = int(arg)
        elif opt in ("-s"):
            sticky = True

    # connect up to Growl server machine
    addr = (host, GROWL_UDP_PORT)

    s = socket(AF_INET,SOCK_DGRAM)
    # register application with remote Growl
    p = GrowlRegistrationPacket()
    p.addNotification()
    # send registration packet
    s.sendto(p.payload(), addr)

    # assemble notification packet
    p = GrowlNotificationPacket(title=title, description=description, priority=priority, sticky=sticky)

    # send notification packet
    s.sendto(p.payload(), addr)
    s.close()

def usage():
    print """Usage: ./netgrowl.py [-hs] [-H hostname] [-t title] [-d description] [-p priority]
Send Growl messages over UDP
  -h help
  -H specify host
  -t title
  -d description
  -p priority [-2 to 2]
  -s make sticky"""
    sys.exit(1)

class GrowlRegistrationPacket:
  """Builds a Growl Network Registration packet.
     Defaults to emulating the command-line growlnotify utility."""

  def __init__(self, application="NetGrowl", password = None ):
    self.notifications = []
    self.defaults = [] # array of indexes into notifications
    self.application = application.encode("utf-8")
    self.password = password
  # end def

  def addNotification(self, notification="Command-Line Growl Notification", enabled=True):
    """Adds a notification type and sets whether it is enabled on the GUI"""
    self.notifications.append(notification)
    if enabled:
      self.defaults.append(len(self.notifications)-1)
  # end def

  def payload(self):
    """Returns the packet payload."""
    self.data = struct.pack( "!BBH",
                             GROWL_PROTOCOL_VERSION,
                             GROWL_TYPE_REGISTRATION,
                             len(self.application) )
    self.data += struct.pack( "BB",
                              len(self.notifications),
                              len(self.defaults) )
    self.data += self.application
    for notification in self.notifications:
      encoded = notification.encode("utf-8")
      self.data += struct.pack("!H", len(encoded))
      self.data += encoded
    for default in self.defaults:
      self.data += struct.pack("B", default)
    self.checksum = md5_constructor()
    self.checksum.update(self.data)
    if self.password:
       self.checksum.update(self.password)
    self.data += self.checksum.digest()
    return self.data
  # end def
# end class

class GrowlNotificationPacket:
  """Builds a Growl Network Notification packet.
     Defaults to emulating the command-line growlnotify utility."""

  def __init__(self, application="NetGrowl",
               notification="Command-Line Growl Notification", title="Title",
               description="Description", priority = 0, sticky = False, password = None ):

    self.application  = application.encode("utf-8")
    self.notification = notification.encode("utf-8")
    self.title        = title.encode("utf-8")
    self.description  = description.encode("utf-8")
    flags = (priority & 0x07) * 2
    if priority < 0:
      flags |= 0x08
    if sticky:
      flags = flags | 0x0100
    self.data = struct.pack( "!BBHHHHH",
                             GROWL_PROTOCOL_VERSION,
                             GROWL_TYPE_NOTIFICATION,
                             flags,
                             len(self.notification),
                             len(self.title),
                             len(self.description),
                             len(self.application) )
    self.data += self.notification
    self.data += self.title
    self.data += self.description
    self.data += self.application
    self.checksum = md5_constructor()
    self.checksum.update(self.data)
    if password:
       self.checksum.update(password)
    self.data += self.checksum.digest()
  # end def

  def payload(self):
    """Returns the packet payload."""
    return self.data
  # end def
# end class

if __name__ == '__main__':

    # send command line arguments to main() function
    main(sys.argv[1:])