WEB-Based Control of Embedded Systems

Embedded Systems such as Network Attached Storage devices and DSL Routers can often be enhanced in order to perform additional autonomous computing tasks. This paper describes a method of interacting with and controlling such computations via an application running on a remote PC that serves as both the user interface and controller for applications running on networked embedded systems. Support for complex GUI standards such as X-Windows is not required, nor is a complicated Remote Procedure Call mechanism used. Instead, all interaction between the systems uses the HTTP protocol. Full-duplex and asynchronous interaction is made possible by running a web server not only on the target system, but also within the control application. The author has implemented the concepts discussed in this paper and a sample application called WEB32 will be demonstrated.