Python NAT Server - python

I'm looking for a program to turn my computer into a NAT, preferably written in Python, that I can play with and modify for some research I'm taking part in.
We need to try and monitor a network's traffic and find some data inside the TCP packets, and as a proof-of-concept we want to use Python for its simplicity.
Do you know of anything like this? Would we have to write one from scratch?
Thanks,
Dvorak

Try looking into using the twisted library - you'll have to effectively implement both a client + server side in one, but that shouldn't be too hard.

Related

Writing and routing over ethernet without IP

I have a project in which I need to setup a network that is essentially a bunch of Raspberry Pis connected through a router over ethernet, and have them talk to each other without using IP.
My challenge here is two folds, first, how can I write raw binary data to ethernet to pass my own custom payloads and have a custom parser on each end picking up and deserialising that data?
Second, and this is secondary for this post, if anyone has any ideas as to how I could use a router without using IP (aka setting up my own simple addressing protocol) this would be very welcomed. So far what I've sketched out is to procure myself a router than can be flashed, then have custom software on there running a custom protocol. However I'm not sure if this is even doable with off the shelf routers. Pointers are welcome.
Ideally I'd like to do all of this in python.
For your first question: asyncio comes as a standard library with Python. It can handle most of your communication needs, essentially acting as your communication stream for your binary data. Example implementation here.
For your second question: you can't go wrong with using IPv4. You could potentially implement something new but you'd probably go down a rabbit hole in doing so.

Control hardware (a Raman spectrometer) using Python

I have an old Raman spectrometer (one of these - http://www.camo.com/downloads/partners/deltanu/Inspector_Raman_Datasheet.pdf) and I'd like to write code, ideally in Python, that can provide it with input parameters, operate it and receive data from it.
The spectrometer connects to a PC via a USB, although it is assigned to a virtual COM port. I currently control it using an .exe file provided by the company that used to sell it, that I believe was produced using LabVIEW.
Is it possible to write my own code to control this sort of hardware? How can I pass parameters and commands to hardware? What information would I need to know to do this?
Although I'm a fairly proficient Python coder, this is a brand new area for me, so any advice on where to start would be super appreciated. I'm open to coding in another language if that would be more appropriate. And let me know if I need to provide any more info.
Cheers, Liam
A google search for the device model name and "programming manual" is usually where I start with something like this. Those keywords hopefully turn up something from the manufacturer that tells you how to do exactly what you're trying to do, and a lot of them include code samples. Unfortunately, with the little information I have on your device, I couldn't find anything. That's going to make it much, much harder.
Everything beyond this point is a guess based on what I've seen before. Typically, if a LabVIEW program interacts with a device over a virtual COM port, the program sends an ASCII command to the device using the protocol defined in the manual, and then receives ASCII data in return. You can try sniffing that data with the NI I/O Trace tool (http://www.ni.com/download/ni-io-trace-14.0.1/4914/en/) while running the manufacturer's application, and then trying to make sense of the flood of data that you see on that port.
It could also be a Modbus device, which may help you figure out the structure of the communication.
In short, this'll be tough without a programming manual, but there is some hope. Good luck!

making IM program - am novice - how to connect to individual computer, not on LAN- using Python 3.2?

I was wondering if you could help me with some programming. I'm trying to write a chat program but i'm stuck. I can use LAN easily enough, but I cant do it over WAN / the Internet as an external IP-address only refers to the Lan/router. how can you connect to one computer in particular?
I'm trying to write in Python, but ive ran into a problem. i'm using a very basic client-server system using the socket module for both (so far).
The problem i'm having is that, while connecting over LAN is easy enough, i need to connect over the internet to one computer. This is because the external IP is only referring to the router. I know i could use probably port-forwarding but i was wondering if there was a way to reach the individual computer without the user manipulating router settings.
There's something called NAT Traversal. But it's not standard at all and there are may ways to do it, depending on the router vendor and other things. So it's a very complex thing to implement in a generic manner.

Correct way to code a Python Server

Which way is better?
Creating a while loop and then using the select module OR using ThreadedTCPServer with a custom class.
Im having problems with the Threaded TCP Server, although it could just be my coding.
My personal recommendation is to use Twisted. It's a Python-based framework intended primarily for writing event-driven network software. The documentation has a lot of great examples of how to create various types of servers and clients, as well.
I am sure there is no such a thing like the "correct" way.
If you want not, must not or cannot use any of the existing server implementations the general idea is (in pseudo code):
ss = serversocket()
ss.bind ()
while (True):
cs = ss.accept ()
spawnCommThread (cs)
In the CommThread for each client you take care of reading from the socket returned by accept, communicate with your client and die, when the client closes the connection or another criterion is given.

Python inter-computer communication

This whole topic is way out of my depth, so forgive my imprecise question, but I have two computers both connected to one LAN.
What I want is to be able to communicate one string between the two, by running a python script on the first (the host) where the string will originate, and a second on the client computer to retrieve the string.
What is the most efficient way for an inexperienced programmer like me to achieve this?
First, lets get the nomenclature straight. Usually the part that initiate the communication is the client, the parts that is waiting for a connection is a server, which then will receive the data from the client and generate a response. From your question, the "host" is the client and the "client" seems to be the server.
Then you have to decide how to transfer the data. You can use straight sockets, in which case you can use SocketServer, or you can rely on an existing protocol, like HTTP or XML-RPC, in which case you will find ready to use library packages with plenty of examples (e.g. xmlrpclib and SimpleXMLRPCServer)
There are about a million ways.
If I were doing it, I'd use the SocketServer library, because it's not too insane, fairly well documented, and most importantly, I've used it before.
There are a couple of examples here: http://docs.python.org/library/socketserver.html#examples
File share and polling filesystem every minute. No joke. Of course, it depends on what are requirements for your applications and what lag is acceptable but in practice using file shares is quite common.

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