Open a webpage on LAN then kill it

I've got a webpage on my LAN that calls an external (internet) API for about 15 seconds.

I don't need to see the page as it emails me success or failure messages when it runs.

Can someone who knows OS X more than I do help me call this page in an Action?

I've got a non-embedded python script that calls:

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subprocess.Popen('open http://ip_address/folder/cmd.php?action=stuff',shell=True);

Can I get this to close/kill/terminate after 30 seconds so it's not hanging around; I might call this action (there's 4 commands I can give it) several times per day which I guess will just stay open? I don't need a graceful action - just kill it!

Peter

Try something like:

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subprocess.Popen('open http://ip_address/folder/cmd.php?action=stuff; sleep 30; exit',shell=True);


I think that's just sleeping and killing the shell process - not the safari app that opens the URL.

Can I do pid = .... Followed by process.close(pid) or something like that?


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TBH, I'd be happy force-quitting Safari - I never consciously leave it open as the server is headless.


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Do you actually need Safari to open the URL? Are you looking at the output? Try using curl in a Terminal window with the same URL. Does it do what you need?

I wondered the same as I posted my last reply...


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I would actually look at using the Python Requests module to do the web page fetch directly from a Python script. No shell at all.

It will get stopped by Indigo though - more than 10 seconds.


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External Python script, not an embedded script.

Or go whole hog - write a plugin that specifically deals with this external API you're using.

There's already a plugin for it - Nissan Leaf - but currently Nissan have disabled the API.

The temporary method I'm using is POSTing to a website that has somehow screen-scraped the live Nissan pages and is thus still working.

Once Nissan fix their security leak and the API, the Nissan Leaf plugin will be updated accordingly.


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Where does he 15 seconds come from? Does it take that long for the page to display? Or does it never finish and you have to cancel the fetch? Writing an external Python or shell script that self terminates is probably the best way.

It 'rings up' the car over 2G network to send the command, then returns with success or failure in a JSON blob.

If I don't need success/failure I can ignore it once the command has initialised.


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Use curl with a short -m (--max-time) option so it returns right away. Maybe something like:

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subprocess.call(["/opt/local/bin/curl", "-m", "5", "http://ip_address/folder/cmd.php?action=stuff");