Dreamhost Controller using API
Dreamhost controller is a free application built using Adobe AIR and Dreamhost APIs. This application brings almost all functionality provided by the Dreamhost APIs to the desktop. The app can run on multiple operating-systems (Mac, Windows and Linux desktops). The first version was out on May 26th. By default the test account of dreamhost is set to be used to invoke APIs. This will show you the features and capabilities of the system
Installing the Dreamhost Controller App (v1.1)
API Key from Dreamhost
To access your account details you will have to get an API key from Dreamhost Web Panel API. Please note that this is optional if you want to test the application.
Here are a few screenshots that show the Dreamhost Controller in Action:
- Installation Screen
- Landing Page
- Add DNS records
- View Domains
- Private Server Load Check
- Reboot PS Server
- Ubuntu Taskbar
- New DNS entry on Ubuntu
The first version of the Dreamhost Controller does a lot of things from rebooting private servers to adding DNS records, viewing announcement lists, domains, users and so on. The source code will be made available to the public on Google code once the code base is cleaned up. In the meantime if you have any comments/suggestions/ideas please let us know. We would also like to post a screenshot of Dreamhost controller running on a Mac, please do send us a screenshot if you do get it running on a Mac.
Version 1.1 (Changelog)
- MySQL users list added to Dreamhost Controller following new API added
- Bug resolved with display of Add New DNS following repeated clicks
- AIR file size reduced slightly (Long term aim is to bring it down to well under 1MB)










Nice app.
Can I make a suggestion? The API shows all the servers of dreamhost that are in use to run my websites (web server, database server, ftp, etc). If your app can read the rss feed from dreamhoststatus.com or filter through the twitter feed here twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/8208872.rss and alert the user if any server matches theirs.. this will be a cool feature! Something I would love to have on my desktop always.
Mac Screenshots:
http://imgur.com/q4fnJ.png
http://imgur.com/SWk2G.png
http://imgur.com/icWYL.png
http://imgur.com/5jv7h.png
@Stroller
Thanks for the feedback and good suggestion. I will request Dreamhost to do something about this at the API level so that life is easier for us as developers
@0rson
Thanks for the screenshots!
Version 1.1 is now ready. Yay!
We have a lot of good ideas and need to implement more features from the API. Looking for contributions once we release the code on google code very soon.
I think alerts are going to be the killer feature of the controller being a desktop app (cross platform helps). Does Dreamhost API allow access to PS server usage in real time? This will mean I can get desktop alerts when my PS server is being over utlilized.
Where can I get the sourcecode?
Thank you all for your patience! Here is the entire code base on Google code. I am looking forward to people coming up with exciting ideas (with code) on how to take it further.
Link to code: http://code.google.com/p/webdigicontroller/
hey.
your app seems like a great idea, however I was put off by the warning during installation, such as “unknown publisher” and “full system access”.
I’m not that paranoid and I run linux, so I’m better protected, but perhaps you can give some more advice about these or include further info to the install script, so that cautious users like myself might be more inclined to give it a go.
thanks and good luck.
@mg I totally understand! I too keep security first whenever possible. The message you get is a standard message for every application that only uses a self signed certificate and not an expensive paid code signing certificate. Also the full system access is the standard. The Dreamhost app does not access your system at all and does not even store the passwords on your machine. IMO once an application is signed it means that Adobe and everyone else knows for sure who created this app but it still does not keep you a 100% safe from bad coding or malicious activity.
If you have the time you can go to google code for the project, you will be able to download the code in full once you have it downloaded you will be able to go through it and check for anything unusual. Once you have the code on your machine, if you have Adobe AIR you will be able to run the code using ‘adl dreamhost.xml’. To see more details on how to setup AIR SDK on Ubuntu or Windows machine take a look at our blog entry on March 2009. http://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2009/adobe_air_hello_world_on_ubuntu_and_windows/
Be safe its worth it! We’ve recently got a free 1 year Thawte certificate thanks to Adobe we might use it on this mini-project soon.
This is awesome! it gonna help me… i will be getting an Idea how this works