Start program on another machine

[Mike Doty]

On a peer to peer network is there a way for a terminal to start a program running on the server? I'm trying to avoid writing a polling program on the server. If not I'm trying to figure out how to send a signal to a USB port on another machine to open a cash drawer (there is no driver.)

[Wayne Diamond]

rcmd by William Burns might be what youre after - "a program that is very similar to the PSEXEC.EXE found at www.sysinternals.com. It uses the same methods to remotely connect, login, and run a program on the remote PC."

http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pbforums/showthread.php?t=24849

Its also pretty easy to write a simple server and client combination that talk to each other over TCP or UDP to get remote functionality

[Mike Doty]

Thanks, but trying to do by taking advantage of a program/service already running on the server. The clients only need to call a program that
sends a byte to USB port on the other machine. The client might also be running Windows 98. I could easily check for a change on the server,
and execute a little program to send a byte to one of it's USB ports, but not having to add another running program or service to the server is the goal.

[Erich Schulman]

Some Windows versions have a built-in telnet server which is disabled by default. If you enable it, the clients can use a Win32 port of expect.

You could also set up a CGI (or .aspx) on the server's httpd. The client calls the server with IE, Firefox, Lynx, whatever with a special URL and the server could even report back.

[Hans-Dieter Veit]

..., but not having to add another running program or service to the server is the goal.

I don't think this is possible. Even if you use some of the internal Services, you have to start something running wich isn't running before.

I believe that a custom written PB solution could be the tiniest possible solution.

Hans