Introduction

SiteConnector is Sitellite's Web Services add-on, which allows you to connect your Sitellite CMS with other applications using the SOAP or XML-RPC protocols. SiteConnector makes it easy to create and publish new services from standard PHP classes, including the auto-generation of WSDL descriptors, which can be used by other applications to talk to your Sitellite CMS, and to utilize other SOAP or XML-RPC sources (ie. other applications) programmatically within your Sitellite-based apps.

Some additional of the benefits of SiteConnector include:

• Simple and consistent API for accessing both SOAP and XML-RPC sources, so you can both deploy and consume Web Services in both protocols with no source code changes.
• Authentication provided automatically by Sitellite's built-in authentication system, enabling controlled access with separate password protected accounts for separate organizations.
• Uses standard Apache SSL (optional) for secure, encrypted communication, requiring no code changes whatsoever.
• Built-in usage tracking and monitoring (users, date/time, response code, IP addresses) to keep you informed at all times.

Installation

Getting up and running with SiteConnector is a fast and easy 4-step process:

1. Create the SiteConnector database tables:

$ cd /PATH/TO/SITELLITE
$ mysql -p -u USER DBNAME < inc/app/siteconnector/install/install-mysql.sql
(enter password when prompted)

2. Define a new SiteConnector resource by either a) adding the following line to the file
inc/conf/auth/resources/index.php:

app_siteconnector = Off

Or b) adding the resource app_siteconnector via the admin tools in the Sitellite Control Panel.

3. Define a siteconnector role by either a) copying the file inc/app/siteconnector/install/siteconnector.php to inc/conf/auth/roles/ or b) creating a siteconnector role via the admin tools in the Sitellite Control Panel with the following settings:

Name: siteconnector
Is admin?: Yes
Disabled: No
Allowed Resources: App Siteconnector (Read and Write)

You may set the allowed access levels and statuses to whatever you want. The default in the example file are All and All (Read and Write).

4. Before a 3rd party can connect to your SiteConnector Web Services, you will need to create a user for them with the role siteconnector via the Sitellite Control Panel.

You should now be ready to start using your new SiteConnector add-on.

Examples

To run the examples, first create a user with the username wsc_test and password wsc_test and the role siteconnector in the admin tools in the Sitellite Control Panel. Now, you should be able to run the SOAP and XML-RPC tests at the following URLs:

SOAP Test

http://www.example.com/index/siteconnector-client-soap-action

XML-RPC Test

http://www.example.com/index/siteconnector-client-xmlrpc-action

Note: These boxes were added in siteconnector-1.0.2-stable

Documentation

You can access the documentation for SiteConnector via the AppDoc add-on in the Sitellite ControlPanel. This provides access to documentation about the SiteConnector API, which is what you'll use to create and consume Web Services with SiteConnector.

Another place to start is to read and copy the source code of the example services inc inc/app/siteconnector/lib/Service/ and the example client tests in inc/app/siteconnector/boxes/client/ These serve as code examples to help get you started writing your own.

Credits

SiteConnector uses two packages as the basis for its SOAP and XML-RPC implementations:

• PEAR::SOAP, http://pear.php.net/package/SOAP
• Incutio XML-RPC, http://www.phppatterns.com/index.php/article/articleview/83/1/2/

SiteConnector is released under the GNU GPL.