I am currently writing a .Net application to listen, log and graph the temperatures and fan speeds of my servers using the xAP protocol. I’ll be using SpeedFan to monitor the temperatures and fan speeds of the servers because SpeedFan includes the ability to broadcast the current sensors using xAP. Sounds complicated right? We’ll lets look at the xAP protocol first.

The xAP Home Automation Protocol is a lightweight, ASCII based communication protocol. It’s a simple protocol that takes very little processing power to use and is actually easy to work with. It seems their goal is to work across multiple mediums (ethernet, serial, parallel) and multiple systems (full machine, light embedded systems, and even audrino boards!) while remaining simple and human readable.

xAP protocol message from SpeedFan

xAP-header
{
v=12
hop=1
uid=FF671100
class=PC.status
source=Almico.SpeedFan.NARU
}
temp.1
{
id=Core
curr=48.0
want=40
warn=50
}
temp.2
{
id=CPU Off Die
curr=40.0
want=40
warn=50
}
temp.3
{
id=Motherboard
curr=40.0
want=40
warn=50
}
temp.4
{
id=HD0
curr=48.0
want=40
warn=50
}
fan.1
{
id=Fan1
curr=3342
}

As you can see in the message above you can easily read the following information:

• The class of the message is the type of PC.Status.

• The source is from SpeedFan by Almico on the computer Naru.

• There are 4 temperature sensors and 1 fan sensor on the server as reported by SpeedFan.

xAP over Ethernet uses a UDP broadcast on port 3639. Now, armed with this information, writing a simple .Net console application doesn’t seem too hard does it?

Hopefully by now you can already see a way or two in processing this text-based message. Believe me, it isn’t as hard as it seems! Over the next couple posts we’ll see a method for parsing the message and the incorporation of a few of the newer .Net technologies (some extension methods and lambda expressions)! Stay tuned!