xmlrpc posting with Xpostulate

[tonybaldwin]

Okay...I've started to hack up the xmlrpc functions.
First, I had to replace all "<" and ">" in html tags in a post with"&lt;" and "&gt;",
and then, I have basically just handwritten out a relevant xml file.
Which looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?><methodCall><methodName>LJ.XMLRPC.postevent</methodName><params><param><value><struct><member><name>username</name><value><string>tonytraductor</string></value></member><member><name>password</name><value><string>XXXXXXXX</string></value></member><member><name>subject</name><value><string>xmlrpc posting</string></value></member><member><name>lineendings</name><value><string>pc</string><value></member><member><name>year</name><value><int>2010</int></value></member><member><name>mon</name><value><int>04</int></value></member><member><name>day</name><value><int>06</int></value></member><member><name>hour</name><value><int>10</int></value></member><member><name>min</name><value><int>46</int></value></member><member><name>prop_current_location</name><value><string>127.0.0.1</string></value></member><member><name>propr_current_mood</name><value><string>focused</string></value></member><member><name>prop_taglist</name><value><string>xmlrpc, xpostulate, wordpress, livejournal, dreamwidth, insanejournal</string></value></member><member><name>prop_currentmusic</name><value><string>none</string></value></member><member><name>userjournal</name><value><string>which journal?</string></value></member><member><name>event</name><value><string>Okay...I've started to hack up the xmlrpc functions.
First, I had to replace all "<" and ">" in html tags in a post with "&lt;" and "&gt;",
and then, I have basically just handwritten out a relevant xml file.


</string></value></member></struct></value></param></params></methodCall>


What I haven't done is tried to send such a file to a server, yet...
I'm not sure if the posting method has to be different from a flat post, in terms of simply sending this file as the post data...
More work...
But, hey, I'm working on it!

Comments

[tonybaldwin]

This is the kind of thing I'm not finding sufficiently explained in the existing documentation.
I hate that.
How'd you post with the < in there?
I seem to be missing some stuff, too.
(auth_challenge, auth_method, auth_respons...don't know what needs to be in there (sure it's not "blablabla", too), haven't seen it)
So, clearly, I have some more learning to do, but, the thing is, the documentation I have found is woefully inadequate in explaining this things...at least for a rather novice programmer, such as myself.

[catness]

Never mind auth_challenge, I suppose it should work with plain passwords for a start - but have a look at http://www.livejournal.com/doc/server/ljp.csp.xml-rpc.getchallenge.html (I can explain further if you need)
(and I've replaced the real data with blablabla just in case, for security - the challenge is supposed to expire after posting, but I'm a bit paranoid)

Also, probably you don't have to base64-encode the post content, unless you post in non-English languages with weird characters.

For using angle brackets, replace them with &gt; and &lt; ;)

The LJ documentation is a bit terse, that's right... but you'll get the hang of it eventually!

[tonybaldwin]

Except, of course, I realize I need to separate the props from the params, and the post, or something...working on that now, but,
I just mean posting with the tags intact, without using [ and ]
.
like this

<a href="http://baldwinsoftware.com/xpost.html">here's a link to Xpostulate</a>

[catness]

Getting closer :) Pay attention to the props structure, it's not like in the flat interface. And I hope it's not your real password... or you'd better edit it out, you don't know who might be reading this!

[catness]

Oh and it's past my sleeping time... see you tomorrow, and I hope I'll wake up to see an entry posted through Xpostulate's XML-RPC interface :)

[tonybaldwin]

I don't get this getchallenge at all.
I have to request some key?
Then I have to parse some xml file to retrieve the key, so I can send it with my post?
That's excessively complicated...and seems needlessly so, to me.
That's going to be a real headache, extracting the key from the xml response from the server.
Why do they have to complicate everything in this manner?
Flat posting works great, and is so simple.
But every other blog service (blogger, wordpress) requires some form of xmlrpc or derivative thereof.
I don't understand the popularity of this obfuscation.
I thought hackers were supposed to seek to simplify things, not make them more difficult.

[catness]

Actually, the idea is that the programmer doesn't have to parse (or to build) xml files manually, but to use an already existing parser. My previous client used flat interface, and I can assure you that xml is a lot more simple and clean, as you can refer to variables by their keys, and don't have to see the actual data at all.

You're just a bit unlucky that you're using a non-mainstream language which doesn't have a good xml-rpc implementation yet. Even then, you can write that yourself, and then use it for all the other sites (e.g. wordpress) in exactly the same way (and other Tcl users probably will appreciate it too! the problem is solved once and for all.) While with flat interface, the programmer has to write a new parser for each protocol because there are no standards.

The purpose of challenge/response method is security; when you send password in cleartext, everyone can snoop on your traffic and get access to your account, especially with wireless (and from what I'm reading on Bash, people actually do it). I suggest that for now you get xml-rpc working without it. I'll explain challenge/response later, when I'll be more awake. And here's a better reference, with an example in Perl: http://www.livejournal.com/doc/server/ljp.csp.auth.challresp.html which also shows the simplicity of using XML-RPC interface.

[catness]

Posted a hopefully helpful example: http://catness.dreamwidth.org/61674.html

[tonybaldwin]

I've manage to correct some errors in my xml, and, it seems I am now successfully sending it, but I get:
Client error: Missing required argument(s)
back from the server.

It must be the getchallenge thing, which I haven't implemented, unless there's something else I'm blindly leaving out.
According to the LJ docs I can find for postevent, it seems I have all required arguments (and the getchallenge stuff is NOT mentioned in the LJ docs I can find for postevent)

Here's my xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<methodCall><methodName>LJ.XMLRPC.postevent</methodName>
<params><param><value><struct>
<member><name>username</name><value><string>someclown</string></value></member>
<member><name>password</name><value><string>yomamaisfat</string></value></member>
<member><name>subject</name><value><string>test post</string></value></member>
<member><name>lineendings</name><value><string>pc</string></value></member>
<member><name>year</name><value><int>2010</int></value></member>
<member><name>mon</name><value><int>04</int></value></member>
<member><name>day</name><value><int>07</int></value></member>
<member><name>hour</name><value><int>10</int></value></member>
<member><name>min</name><value><int>31</int></value></member>
<member><name>userjournal</name><value><string>tonytraductor</string></value></member>
<member><name>event</name><value><string><base64>some text</base64></string></value></member>

<member><name>props</name>
<value><struct>
<member><name>useragent</name><value><string>Xpostulate</string></value></member>
<member><name>prop_current_location</name><value><string>127.0.0.1</string></value></member>
<member><name>prop_current_mood</name><value><string>mood</string></value></member>
<member><name>prop_taglist</name><value><string>test post</string></value></member>
<member><name>prop_currentmusic</name><value><string>music</string></value></member>
</struct></value></member>
</struct></value>
</param></params>
</methodCall>

sending it (apparently successfully), with set dopost [http::geturl http://www.livejournal.com/interface/xmlrpc -query $::pxml -type "text/xml" ]

[tonybaldwin]

Now, I'm sending this without the headers, because someone on #dreamwidth-dev told me that http::geturl would make headers, and, thus, sending them was redundant...
I'm going to second guess that, and add them back in...brb

[tonybaldwin]

Okay, I get this "Application failed during request deserialization:
syntax error at line 1, column 0, byte 0 at /usr/lib/perl5/XML/Parser.pm line 187", when I add the following headers back in:

POST /interface/xmlrpc HTTP/1.0
User-Agent: XMLRPC Client 1.0
Host: www.livejournal.com
Content-Type: text/xml
Content-Length: 1625

Considering that line 1 column 0 would be "P" in "POST", I'm assuming that the headers were decidedly NOT the missing argument.
I'm going to have to get the getchallenge auth thing working...
aaarghh...

[catness]

A few keywords are wrong:

- it's usejournal, not userjournal (anyway it can be omitted if you post in your own journal)

- the prop names must not have "prop_" prepended to it, i.e. it is: current_location, current_mood, taglist and current_music (see http://www.livejournal.com/doc/server/ljp.csp.proplist.html - it is different from flat interface)

- event: it's either "string" or "base64" but not both - if you do not encode it to base64, remove base64 tag, otherwise remove string tag (I'm not sure about this, but this is what I see in my data stream) - maybe that's the problem, event is a required field


Maybe you have to specify auth_method=clear, even though it's supposed to be default.

[tonybaldwin]

Thanks for pointing those out.
I've correct the props, etc.
At this point, I think I mostly need to get the challenge sorted out.
The data I'm feeding my parser (which should be the server response) when asking for the challenge seems to be incorrect.
This is how I'm trying to get that:
http://pastebin.com/ed4cTjaG
to set the
value for $mychal in
<member><name>challenge</name><value><string>$mychal</string></value></member>

[tonybaldwin]

I don't know/wonder if foreign characters like ç ñ ¿ é require that base64?
They are regular utf8 chars, so, likely not?
base64 should only be required for asian/arabic/cyrillic or such?