__
/\ \__ ratox is a client implementation of the rather popular tox protocol[0]. Unlike other clients relying on GUIs as an interface to the user, ratox is developed with the UNIX-philosophy in mind and allows complete interaction through named pipes.
There's also a set of scripts[1] developed by various people that build on top of the FIFO interface.
Get the latest version from the git-repository; build and install it. Run ratox in an empty directory and it will create a set of files and folders allowing you to control the client.
A typical filesystem structure is shown below along with some comments to help explain the semantics of the individual files.
| . | -- .ratox.data # ratox save file |
|---|---|
| -- 0A734CBA717CEB7883D.... # friend's ID excluding nospam + checksum | |
| -- call_in # 'arecord -r 48000 -c 1 -f S16_LE > call_in' to initiate a call | |
| -- call_out # 'aplay -r 48000 -c 1 -f S16_LE - < call_out' to answer a call | |
| -- call_state # (none, pending, active) | |
| -- file_in # 'cat foo > file_in' to send a file | |
| -- file_out # 'cat file_out > bar' to receive a file | |
| -- file_pending # contains filename if transfer pending, empty otherwise | |
| -- name # friend's nickname | |
| -- online # 1 if friend online, 0 otherwise | |
| -- remove # 'echo 1 > remove' to remove a friend | |
| -- state # friend's user state; could be any of {none,away,busy} | |
| -- status # friend's status message | |
| -- text_in # 'echo yo dude > text_in' to send a text to this friend | |
| `-- text_out # 'tail -f text_out' to dump to stdout any text received | |
| -- 00000000 | |
| -- members # list of people in the conference | |
| -- invite # 'echo 0A734CBA717CEB7883D.... >invite' to invite | |
| -- leave # 'echo 1 >leave' to leave the conference | |
| -- title_in # 'echo new-title >title_in' to update the conference title | |
| -- title_out # contains the current title | |
| -- text_in # 'echo blablahumbla >text_in' to message the other conference members | |
| -- text_out # contains the messages sent so far in the conference | |
| -- id # 'cat id' to show your own ID, you can give this to your friends | |
| -- conf # managing conferences | |
| -- err # conference related errors | |
| -- in # 'echo 't group title' >in' for creating a new text group | |
| -- out # 'echo 1 >out/ID_COOKIE' for joining a conference | |
| -- name # changing your nick | |
| -- err # nickname related errors | |
| -- in # 'echo my-new-nick > in' to change your name | |
| `-- out # 'cat out' to show your name | |
| -- nospam # changing your nospam | |
| -- err # nospam related errors | |
| -- in # 'echo AABBCCDD > in' to change your nospam | |
| `-- out # 'cat out' to show your nospam | |
| -- request # send and accept friend requests | |
| -- err # request related errors | |
| -- in # 'echo LONGASSID yo dude add me > in' to send a friend request | |
| `-- out # 'echo 1 > out/LONGASSID' to accept the friend request | |
| -- state # changing your user state | |
| -- err # user status related errors | |
| -- in # 'echo away > in' to change your user state; could be any of {none,away,busy} | |
| `-- out # 'cat out' to show your user state | |
-- status # changing your status message |-- err # status message related errors |-- in # 'cat I am bored to death > in' to change your status message -- out # 'cat out' to show your status message
1 v 1 messaging: Yes File transfer: Yes Group chat: Yes Audio: Yes Video: No DNS discovery: No Chat logs: Yes Proxy support: Yes Offline message: Yes Offline transfers: Yes Contact aliases: No Contact blocking: No Save file encryption: Yes Multilingual: No Multiprofile: Yes Typing notification: No Audio notifications: No Emoticons: No Spell check: No Desktop sharing: No Inline images: No File resuming: No Read receipts: No Message splitting: Yes Changing nospam: Yes toxi URI: No
NOTE: Some of these features are not intended to be developed in ratox itself but rather in external scripts[1] that are built upon ratox.
Group chats do not have audio yet.
On the sender side (the client): 1) cd into the friend's directory (the server) 2) nc -lv 1234 > file_in < file_out
On the receiver side (the server): 1) cd into the friend's directory (the client) 2) cat < file_out | nc localhost 22 > file_in
Now on the client run the following: ssh -o ProxyCommand="nc %h 1234" user@localhost
This can of course be more easily achieved by using tuntox.
On the sender side: ffmpeg -f x11grab -r 10 -s 1366x768 -i :0.0 -vcodec libx264 \ -pix_fmt yuv420p -preset fast -tune zerolatency -b:v 500k \ -f flv pipe: > file_in
On the receiver side: mplayer -cache 1024 file_out
You may have to play about with the cache size.
Builds and works on *BSD and Linux. To build on OSX you need to apply a patch[2].
You can reach us through the freenode IRC network at #2f30 or through tech@lists.2f30.org.
[0] https://tox.chat/ [1] https://git.2f30.org/ratox-nuggets/ [2] https://ratox.2f30.org/ratox-os_x.patch