--- Title: Interacting with remote UPnP devices --- # UPnP Client Tutorial This chapter explains how to write an application which fetches the external IP address from an UPnP-compliant modem. To do this, a Control Point is created, which searches for services of the type `urn:schemas-upnp-org:service:WANIPConnection:1` which is part of the Internet Gateway Devce specification. As services are discovered, ServiceProxy objects are created by GUPnP to allow interaction with the service, on which we can invoke the action `GetExternalIPAddress` to fetch the external IP address. ## Finding Services First, we initialize GUPnP and create a control point targeting the service type. Then we connect a signal handler so that we are notified when services we are interested in are found. ```c #include static GMainLoop *main_loop; static void service_proxy_available_cb (GUPnPControlPoint *cp, GUPnPServiceProxy *proxy, gpointer userdata) { /* ... */ } int main (int argc, char **argv) { GUPnPContext *context; GUPnPControlPoint *cp; /* Create a new GUPnP Context. By here we are using the default GLib main context, and connecting to the current machine's default IP on an automatically generated port. */ context = gupnp_context_new (NULL, 0, NULL); /* Create a Control Point targeting WAN IP Connection services */ cp = gupnp_control_point_new (context, "urn:schemas-upnp-org:service:WANIPConnection:1"); /* The service-proxy-available signal is emitted when any services which match our target are found, so connect to it */ g_signal_connect (cp, "service-proxy-available2, G_CALLBACK (service_proxy_available_cb), NULL); /* Tell the Control Point to start searching */ gssdp_resource_browser_set_active (GSSDP_RESOURCE_BROWSER (cp), TRUE); /* Enter the main loop. This will start the search and result in callbacks to service_proxy_available_cb. */ main_loop = g_main_loop_new (NULL, FALSE); g_main_loop_run (main_loop); /* Clean up */ g_main_loop_unref (main_loop); g_object_unref (cp); g_object_unref (context); return 0; } ``` ## Invoking Actions Now we have an application which searches for the service we specified and calls `service_proxy_available_cb` for each one it found. To get the external IP address we need to invoke the `GetExternalIPAddress` action. This action takes no in arguments, and has a single out argument called "NewExternalIPAddress". GUPnP has a set of methods to invoke actions where you pass a `NULL`-terminated varargs list of (name, GType, value) tuples for the in arguments, then a `NULL`-terminated varargs list of (name, GType, return location) tuples for the out arguments. ```c static void service_proxy_available_cb (GUPnPControlPoint *cp, GUPnPServiceProxy *proxy, gpointer userdata) { GError *error = NULL; char *ip = NULL; GUPnPServiceProxyAction *action = NULL; action = gupnp_service_proxy_action_new ( /* Action name */ "GetExternalIPAddress", /* IN args */ NULL); gupnp_service_proxy_call_action (proxy, action, NULL, &error); if (error != NULL) { goto out; } gupnp_service_proxy_action_get_result (action, /* Error location */ &error, /* OUT args */ "NewExternalIPAddress", G_TYPE_STRING, &ip, NULL); if (error == NULL) { g_print ("External IP address is %s\n", ip); g_free (ip); } out: if (error != NULL) { g_printerr ("Error: %s\n", error->message); g_error_free (error); } gupnp_service_proxy_action_unref (action); g_main_loop_quit (main_loop); } ``` Note that `gupnp_service_proxy_call_action()` blocks until the service has replied. If you need to make non-blocking calls then use `gupnp_service_proxy_call_action_async()`, which takes a callback that will be called from the mainloop when the reply is received. ## Subscribing to state variable change notifications It is possible to get change notifications for the service state variables that have attribute `sendEvents="yes"`. We'll demonstrate this by modifying `service_proxy_available_cb` and using `gupnp_service_proxy_add_notify()` to setup a notification callback: ```c static void external_ip_address_changed (GUPnPServiceProxy *proxy, const char *variable, GValue *value, gpointer userdata) { g_print ("External IP address changed: %s\n", g_value_get_string (value)); } static void service_proxy_available_cb (GUPnPControlPoint *cp, GUPnPServiceProxy *proxy, gpointer userdata) { g_print ("Found a WAN IP Connection service\n"); gupnp_service_proxy_set_subscribed (proxy, TRUE); if (!gupnp_service_proxy_add_notify (proxy, "ExternalIPAddress", G_TYPE_STRING, external_ip_address_changed, NULL)) { g_printerr ("Failed to add notify"); } } ``` ## Generating wrappers Using `gupnp_service_proxy_call_action()` and `gupnp_service_proxy_add_notify()` can become tedious, because of the requirement to specify the types and deal with GValues. An alternative is to use `gupnp-binding-tool`, which generates wrappers that hide the boilerplate code from you. Using a wrapper generated with prefix "ipconn" would replace `gupnp_service_proxy_call_action()` with this code: ```c ipconn_get_external_ip_address (proxy, &ip, &error); ``` State variable change notifications are friendlier with wrappers as well: ```c static void external_ip_address_changed (GUPnPServiceProxy *proxy, const gchar *external_ip_address, gpointer userdata) { g_print ("External IP address changed: '%s'\n", external_ip_address); } static void service_proxy_available_cb (GUPnPControlPoint *cp, GUPnPServiceProxy *proxy gpointer userdata) { g_print ("Found a WAN IP Connection service\n"); gupnp_service_proxy_set_subscribed (proxy, TRUE); if (!ipconn_external_ip_address_add_notify (proxy, external_ip_address_changed, NULL)) { g_printerr ("Failed to add notify"); } } ```