node-dbus

D-bus protocol client and server for node.js

Installation

Important: install socat to be able to use session bus.

npm install dbus-native

or

git clone https://github.com/sidorares/node-dbus # clone the repo
cd node-dbus 
npm install # install dependencies
sudo cp examples/com.github.sidorares.dbus.Example.conf /etc/dbus-1/system.d/ # if you want to test examples/service.js

Usage

Short example using desktop notifications service

var dbus = require('dbus-native');
var sessionBus = dbus.sessionBus();
sessionBus.getService('org.freedesktop.Notifications').getInterface(
    '/org/freedesktop/Notifications', 
    'org.freedesktop.Notifications', function(err, notifications) {
        
    // dbus signals are EventEmitter events
    notifications.on('ActionInvoked', function() {
        console.log('ActionInvoked', arguments);
    }); 
    notifications.on('NotificationClosed', function() {
        console.log('NotificationClosed', arguments);
    });
    notifications.Notify('exampl', 0, '', 'summary 3', 'new message text', ['xxx yyy', 'test2', 'test3', 'test4'], [],  5, function(err, id) {
       //setTimeout(function() { n.CloseNotification(id, console.log); }, 4000);
    });
});

API

Low level messaging: bus connection

connection = dbus.createClient(options)

options:

• socket - unix socket path
• port - TCP port
• host - TCP host
• busAddress - encoded bus address. Default is DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS environment variable. See http://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-specification.html#addresses
• ( TODO: add/document option to use adress from X11 session )

connection has only one method, message(msg)

message fields:

• type - methodCall, methodReturn, error or signal
• path - object path
• interface
• destination
• sender
• member
• serial
• signature
• body
• errorName
• replySerial

connection signals:

• connect - emitted after successful authentication
• message
• error

example:

var dbus = require('dbus-native');
var conn = dbus.createConnection();
conn.message({
    path:'/org/freedesktop/DBus',
    destination: 'org.freedesktop.DBus',
    'interface': 'org.freedesktop.DBus',
    member: 'Hello',
    type: dbus.messageType.methodCall
});
conn.on('message', function(msg) { console.log(msg); });