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3. GNU Phantom.Security Basics

Phantom.Security uses cheap off-the-shelf security devices which can be slightly modified to work with it. Radio Shack carries a lot of the this stuff, like the door magnets and motion sensors. In most cases it's as easy as taking the device apart (like the motion sensor) and simply running two wires to the LED (the little red light). In others (like some smoke detectors), you may need step-down transformers and/or rectifiers to convert AC down to a usable 5V DC level. In any case, if you have some basic electronics knowledge, then the limits for this package are none! Door magnets are extremely easy, and you can use both Normally Closed and Normally Open devices, the software is configurable for both via the Phantom.conf file. The software is run by simply running the Phantom.Security program. It first reads the config file, and then gives a status display which is updated constantly. It can be run in the foreground OR background. To stop it, edit the Phantom.EXIT file and put only a single 'x' in there. Save the file. The program will stop almost immediately. Obviously, this may have to be done from another session if you're running it in the foreground. You can use the interrupt key to stop it, too (i.e. the delete or CTRL-D keys). NOTE: The Phantom.EXIT file must be in the same directory that the Phantom.Security program was run from.

Between the time when you start the program, and the time it ends, it is constantly (depending on machine speed) reading the status of the parallel port. If a Smoke Detector device is tripped, then the firealert program is run. You should edit this script to do what you want it to do. Out-of-the- box it defaults to mailing root. However, if the computer is in the room with the fire, that doesn't help much, does it??? So if you have a portable device which receives e-mail (i.e. a cell phone or pager) put it's e-mail address in there. Or you can modify the circuit and software to set off bells and whistles and stuff! Whatever you have at your disposal. If a Door Magnet or Motion Sensor is tripped, then the intruderalert program is run. This also defaults to e-mailing root.

This system can be as small or as large as you want it to be! It can be run off of slow 486's and work great! So setting a machine aside somewhere and letting it run 24/7 for your fire alarm system is very cost effective. Or you can use an existing PC or workstation! You have the possibility of 5 (or 10, with 2 parallel ports) zones per machine. In a future version I'll put scalable features in to make this really easy.

NOTE: To make Phantom.Security work on the SECOND parallel (LPT) port, change the 379 to 279 in the '#define BASEPORT 0x379' line to '#define BASEPORT 0x279', and re-compile.