Who should care about this project?
Anyone
with a web-server who needs to keep their site up-to-date with data on
a external site (subscribers); and anyone who publishes data that other
web-servers frequently check for updates (publishers).
I use a blacklist on my blog/wiki. Does this mean me?
Yes! Most emphatically! This exact use-case motivated the creation of the http-events project, and is its main initial focus.
What is HttpEvents?
HttpEvents
is a REST-ful HTTP-based mechanism for publish/subscribe services with
low latency and low overhead. It allows a subscriber to keep a local
copy of a publication that lags behind the original by seconds, not
minutes or hours, yet no network traffic is produced when
there are no updates, keeping the publisher's server load low. In
contrast, polling must trade overhead against latency, creating
bandwidth problems for popular publishers that may shut the service
down.
What is http-events?
An
open-source library of PHP headers and scripts implementing HttpEvents.
Specifically, there is a header implementing general HttpEvents
functions (the HTTP calls required by the specification), and two
scripts implementing publish and subscribe for a specific subscription
format: blacklists.
As the primary aim of this project is the creation of a peer-to-peer anti-spam network, http-events
can be used out-of-the-box with little configuration to subscribe to
(or host) a HttpEvents-published blacklist. This lets your wiki/blog
become immune to new spam as fast as the publisher can send an update
to your server, without swamping them with HTTP traffic. The hardest
part is configuring your site to block the spam; this will require
tinkering with the engine you are using.
How far advanced is this project?
We are still in very early days. The current goal is simply the dissemination of the beta http-events library
amongst several wikis, testing how easy the setup is and how well the
network handles. Future development will be in the hands of the wiki
community!
What will I need?
The
essential ingredient is PHP, and a server with outgoing HTTP
connections allowed by your firewall. MySQL, PostgreSQL, or plaintext
flatfile databases can be used for persistence; both PHP and Perl
libraries are provided for connecting your wiki/blog engine to the
blacklist.
You will also need a blacklist published
with HttpEvents. Be sure to pick a publisher you trust, as an evil
publisher can temporary disable all public interaction with your site
if you don't set up precautions in your code.
