Inside Out

Notes on seeking wisdom and crafting software

Sistine: A sify broadband client

Sify provides a connection client(they call it BBClient) for linux. If you use bbclient on *nix, these would have hit you:

- Sifyconnect is a pre-compiled (linked to old openssl libs) binary. I had to literally do some 'n' softlinks to get it start. - As soon as I login, I am greeted with Sify homepage. That to with firefox running from root :) - They overwrite my custom resolv.conf with the sify nameservers. - The UI is a gtk interface which hangs on. I think it needs a systray to hide. Unfortunately my wm doesn't provide a systray (though I can use stalonetray, but using that for a single app..)

After living through these for nearly three months, yesterday the level of irritation overtook my laziness. I had to disconnect few times and everytime the client would fork a firefox. The search for alternate client began. I stumbled across a nice [hack](http://broadbandforum.in/sify-broadband/15416-steppenwolf-takes-sify-broadband-encryption-algorithm/) by Liet-Kynes. The hack literally dissects the sify connection mechanism :P

Stepped through the script and modified a few bits to get the script working in my machine. And now its release time!

Source code:

Usage: Login: sistine.py in | Logout: sistine.py out || Please read the README bundled in the archive.

ChangeLog:

- Simple command line args. (in: login and out:logout) - Added Logout support to the script - Minor modification to connection string - A small bug: If your password contains special characters then the script might not connect. I will look into this for next update. Please patch it if you're a python guy.

Disclaimer: Your box might burst/fly/crawl on running the script. Don't blame me for that. The script works normally for me btw.

License: Public domain. Bend it as you like.

I've tested the script in linux. It should work in windows as well if you've python installed.

The original code by Liet-Kyne is sistine-20070828.tar.gz (link broken). Kudos to Liet-Kyne, buddy youтАЩre a true hacker :)

**Update:** If you're in python 2.6, get the scripts from my [github](http://github.com/codito/sistine/tree "Sistine at GitHub").