1 First BlueJ Day, Houston, Texas, 1st March 2006 The Submitter Extension Ian Utting University of Kent

2 First BlueJ Day, Houston, Texas, 1st March 2006 Overview The original extension – still part of the standard BlueJ download Provides a mechanism for submitting (files from) BlueJ projects for assessment/feedback Supports , ftp, file transfer and http transfers Written in less security-conscious times (late 2002)

3 First BlueJ Day, Houston, Texas, 1st March 2006 Controlling submission A driver file ( submission.defs ) contains a number of user-selectable submission definitions, it can be installed per BlueJ installation, per user or per project This file can include further definitions retrieved from a URL – you can use this to “gate” submissions by changing a centrally controlled file.

4 First BlueJ Day, Houston, Texas, 1st March 2006 Submission transports The target of a submission is specified by a URL-like transport definition, which can include entries collected from the user (e.g. user names, PINs, message text) The mailto: transport requires an SMTP server name to be provided (via BlueJ’s Tools/Preferences panel). The http: transport displays any resulting HTML in a Java panel, clicking an included link will open it in an external browser. There’s no security implementation in the transport mechanisms, except for ftp:.

5 First BlueJ Day, Houston, Texas, 1st March 2006 Submit which files? A definition can specify the files: –Which should be included –Which should be excluded –Which must be present before the submission can proceed Submitted files can be bundled into a Jar (or zip) file.

6 First BlueJ Day, Houston, Texas, 1st March 2006 Where next? Security concerns limit the utility of the Submitter, which doesn’t support: –Secure SMTP –HTTP authorization –SSH Network filestores and the file: transport can be very effective FTP has been rendered (generally) useless On the other hand, there’s a lot more support from standard libraries now than when the Submitter was written

7 First BlueJ Day, Houston, Texas, 1st March 2006 More information The submitter is included with the standard BlueJ download Documentation on the submission.defs file format, with examples and a sample PHP submission handler, is at: