[RESOLVED] What's the best way to check content from a file on another server?

schwim

Hi there guys,

I'd like people who use my script to be able to check their script version against what's available. Unfortunately, I know nothing about this, and don't even know what functions I would look up to find out more about it.

What's the best way to do this? I worry that if my server is down, it would stop the page generation for the script user, which I don't want.

Is there an accepted way to do this? I wouldn't it to check every page load, so I'll put a link to a separate page that checks for a new version, simply because it seems very wasteful to have it contact another server every time they want to load a page.

Any suggestions and thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

thanks,
json

bradgrafelman

You'd have a script on your server that does nothing but output the current version number.

For the link, it could run a script as simple as this:

<?PHP
$version = file_get_contents('http://yoursite.com/currentVersion.php');

include 'config_file_of_your_script.php';

if ($current_version != $version) {
     echo 'New version avalable: ' . $version . '<br/>Visit http://yoursite.com to upgrade!';
}?>

schwim

man, that's awesome, thanks for that!

At first I was trying to assign a value to the variable in the page on the server to be contacted, which didn't work well 😃

It seems to work superbly, and I can't thank you enough for the help.

thanks,
json

schwim

Hi there Brad,

I hope this gets seen(since I clicked resolved), because I have one more question after reading up on this:

Do I need to add anything to this to protect the server from keeping the connection open if it can't reach it's destination? I've read that file() is dangerous because it doesn't allow for this, but I can't find out how to protect myself from it with file_get_contents.

Do I even need to do anything, or does it take care of everything on it's own?

thanks,
json

bradgrafelman

Well, on my server, it timed out right away. If you wanted to make sure the connection doesn't hang for too long if your server is down, you might look at using [man]fsockopen/man like so:

$address = 'www.yoursite.com';
$fp = @fsockopen($address, 80, $errno, $errstr, 5);
if ($fp) {

   $version = '';   

   $out = "GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n";
   $out .= "Host: $address\r\n";
   $out .= "Connection: Close\r\n\r\n";

   fwrite($fp, $out);
   while(!feof($fp)) {

  $tmp = fgets($fp, 1024);
  if(strpos($tmp, 'version') !== FALSE) {

     $version = trim(substr($tmp, 9));
     break;

  }

   }
   fclose($fp);

   include 'your_config_file_here.php';

   if($version != $current_version) {

  echo 'A new version has been released (v' . $version . ')! (blah blah...)';

   } else {

  echo 'You have the latest version (v' . $current_version . ')!';

   }

} else {

   echo 'Sorry! The update site is currently down. Please try again later.';

}

Note that you'd change the script that outputs the current version # on your server to something like:

<?php

// Current version to send to clients:
$version = '4.4.2';

echo $version;

?>

schwim

Hi there Brad,

thanks very much for that. I'm having a probelm implementing it though.

moved it to a functions page, just to keep the admin index as clean as I can. The function seems to be operating ok, and I'm able to enable/disable it through the config settings ok, but when it's enabled, it tells me that the site is down.

1) The version script that it is supposed to check for is on the same server as what the script is running on.

2)Function:

/* This function checks the parent site for the latest version of the script
	If it is enabled in the configuration settings. */
function update_check() {

global $prefix;

$query = "SELECT ver_current,ver_new,ver_check FROM ".$prefix."config";

$result = mysql_query($query) or die('MySQL error: ' . mysql_error() . '<hr/>' . $query);

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {



	$ver_current = $row['ver_current'];

	$ver_new = $row['ver_new'];

	$ver_check = $row['ver_check'];

}

echo("You are currently running Automonial version: (<b>$ver_current</b>). ");


if($ver_check == 1) {
	$address = "www.roughingthesuspect.com/scripts/versions/automonial_version.php";
	$fp = @fsockopen($address, 80, $errno, $errstr, 5);
	if ($fp) {

	   $version = '';   

   	$out = "GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n";
   	$out .= "Host: $address\r\n";
   	$out .= "Connection: Close\r\n\r\n";

	fwrite($fp, $out);
	while(!feof($fp)) {
	   $tmp = fgets($fp, 1024);
	   if(strpos($tmp, 'version') !== FALSE) {
	      $version = trim(substr($tmp, 9));
	      break;
	   }
	}
	fclose($fp);

	if($version != $ver_current) {
  		echo("A new version has been released (v." . $version . "). 
  		(<a href='http://www.roughingthesuspect.com/showtopic.php?id=4)' target='_blank'>download</a>)");
	} else {
  		echo("You are running the latest version (v." . $ver_current . ").");
	}
	} else {
	echo("The update site is currently down.");
	}

}else{
	echo("You have disabled the update check in your settings.");
}
}

When I run it, it simply tells me that the site is currently down.

I've tried both with and without "http://" at the front of the url.

I've tested the URL, and it echo's the version number correctly.

See anything that I've done wrong?

thanks,
json

schwim

heh, I'm getting better, just not good enough to fix it yet 🙂

I removed the error suppression on fsock_open, and was rewarded with the following:

Warning: fsockopen() [function.fsockopen]: php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Name or service not known in /home/roughing/public_html/automonial/includes/functions.php on line 70

Warning: fsockopen() [function.fsockopen]: unable to connect to http://www.roughingthesuspect.com/scripts/versions/automonial_version.php:80 in /home/roughing/public_html/automonial/includes/functions.php on line 70

Line 70:

$fp = fsockopen($address, 80, $errno, $errstr, 5); //removed @

This help any with debugging?

thanks,
json

schwim

Hi there again Brad,

OK, in my meandering and totally inefficient way, I've gotten this far.

If I set my URL to a top level domain, and make the version script the index, it finds it(however it doesn't get the version, but that's later).

If I set it to a subdirectory, it fails.

How do I get the script to connect to a subdirectory(I don't want to buy a domain for the version check 🙂)?

Also, It's not getting the version number. With the code posted above, when the remote version is echoed, it shows (v.), so it's not getting defined.

Ok, now I'm really stuck. I know I've posted 12 times saying that I was stuck, and then got a little farther, but I think this time, I'm REALLY stuck.

thanks,
json

bradgrafelman

Yeah.. that was me not thinking. Change these two lines:

$address = "www.roughingthesuspect.com/scripts/versions/automonial_version.php"; 
        $fp = @fsockopen($address, 80, $errno, $errstr, 5);

to this:

$site = 'www.roughingthesuspect.com';
$address = "/scripts/versions/automonial_version.php"; 
        $fp = @fsockopen($site, 80, $errno, $errstr, 5);

and change this:

           $out = "GET / HTTP/1.1\r\n"; 
           $out .= "Host: $address\r\n";

to this:

           $out = "GET $address HTTP/1.1\r\n"; 
           $out .= "Host: $site\r\n";

schwim

Thanks very much Brad. That got rid of my connection errors.

It's not getting the version variable though. When it shows the update check, it states:

You are currently running Automonial version: (.9.0.0). A new version has been released (v.)

My current function is:

function update_check() {

global $prefix;

$query = "SELECT ver_current,ver_new,ver_check FROM ".$prefix."config";

$result = mysql_query($query) or die('MySQL error: ' . mysql_error() . '<hr/>' . $query);

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {



	$ver_current = $row['ver_current'];

	$ver_new = $row['ver_new'];

	$ver_check = $row['ver_check'];

}

echo("You are currently running Automonial version: (<b>$ver_current</b>). ");


if($ver_check == 1) {
	  $site = 'www.roughingthesuspect.com';
	  $address = "/scripts/versions/automonial_version.php";
    $fp = @fsockopen($site, 80, $errno, $errstr, 5);
	if ($fp) {

	   $version = '';   

   	$out = "GET $address HTTP/1.1\r\n";
     $out .= "Host: $site\r\n";
   	$out .= "Connection: Close\r\n\r\n";

	fwrite($fp, $out);
	while(!feof($fp)) {
	   $tmp = fgets($fp, 1024);
	   if(strpos($tmp, 'version') !== FALSE) {
	      $version = trim(substr($tmp, 9));
	      break;
	   }
	}
	fclose($fp);

	if($version != $ver_current) {
  		echo("A new version has been released (v." . $version . "). 
  		(<a href='http://www.roughingthesuspect.com/showtopic.php?id=4' target='_blank'>download</a>)");
	} else {
  		echo("You are running the latest version (v." . $ver_current . ").");
	}
	} else {
	echo("The update site is currently down.");
	}

}else{
	echo("You have disabled the update check in your settings.");
}
}

If I check the page via browser, it prints the verion to screen.

any ideas?

thanks,
json

bradgrafelman

Grr! This was my fault again. Change the version script on your server to look like this:

<?php 

// Current version to send to clients: 
$version = '4.4.2'; 

echo "version: $version";

?>

(Basically, the script goes through the output of the server until it finds 'version:' (case-sensitive) in the line that it has read - once it finds this, it grabs this line, stores it in the $version variable, and closes the HTTP connection to the "update" script).

Also, just for compatibility's sake, change this line:

if(strpos($tmp, 'version') !== FALSE) {

to this:

if(strpos($tmp, 'version:') !== FALSE) {

schwim

That did it! I would mark the thread [resolved-yet-again], but it seems impossible.

I can't thank you enough. I owe you something, like a drink, or a car or something....

I really appreciate your help with this. I know that my problems always seem to be much more confusing than they need to be due to my poor debugging skills.

thanks,
json

bradgrafelman

schwim wrote:
I owe you something, like a drink, or a car or something....

A car? Now you're talking!

Heh.. just kidding. My solution isn't even the best one, really. I'm sure someone knowledgeable enough in XML handling with PHP would say that creating an upgrade.xml file on your server would be much more effective, but... shrug

schwim

At my level of expertise, tears spring from my eyes if I can get something to work without an error. More efficient methods would probably cause me heart problems or something of the sort.

Really though, I appreciate it. As I learn more, I'll begin making the whole of the script more efficiently, but as it stands, I'm just thrilled that I can get from one end of the script to the other with no errors.

thanks,
json