Actions in SG Webinterface without Desktop App

Pipeline Integrations
1

Hi,

the way we set up our configs here is pretty old-school. So we have cental shared toolkit install, we handle our DCC launches and environments ourself, use a api-script key for sgtk, etc.

We like it that way. But one thing that is missing is the ability to use actions from within the shotgun UI. It seems the only way to get them working is to install the desktop app, but that is something I really want to avoid. We don’t need it at all otherwise.
I tried to get the tk-framework-desktopserver running again. It used to be an app and worked for a time here.
But now I’m unable to get a working communication.
It starts up fine and listens, but when the website sends something I get an OpenSSL Error. Something like this.

2020-06-04 16:27:42,330 [sgtk.ext.tk-framework-desktopserver.twisted.INFO] connection accepted from peer tcp4:127.0.0.1:39952
ERROR: <class ‘OpenSSL.SSL.Error’> [(‘SSL routines’, ‘ssl3_read_bytes’, ‘sslv3 alert certificate unknown’), (‘SSL routines’, ‘ssl3_read_bytes’, ‘ssl handshake failure’)]
2020-06-04 16:27:42,355 [sgtk.ext.tk-framework-desktopserver.INFO] Connection closed.

I looked into the current desktop app, and have seen that in there the old server is also present. When I force the app to use it instead of the new websockets I get the same errors. The code hasn’t changed that much.

So is this way of connecting still viable? Is there a way to get actions working without the desktop app? In the old way, with a certificate instead of logins and session keys?

Thanks,
Nico

3 Likes
2

Hi Nico –

You do indeed need to have Desktop* running in order for the browser integration to work. We’ve had a few go-arounds with websocket server setup and authentication, but in the current state, it’s required that a user be logged into Desktop before the browser integration will work for them. The app can be quite minimal, and simply sit in the system tray.

You can learn more about the history of how we’ve handled websockets, and where we are now in this section of the Admin Guide.

* Note: Shotgun Create has the same websocket server functionality as Desktop. You could use it here instead if that’s preferable.

3 Likes
3

Ok, I feared as much. I know the history, we used all of those implementations until now.

I was hoping for something that can be hosted centrally, just runs in the background without a login and works for multiple shotgun sites without having to login/logout all the time.

Thanks,
Nico

4 Likes