Question

How do I go about creating a socket based status reporting system for an AIR app?

What I have in mind, is you connect to the app via socket connection with some sort of terminal. It presents you with a list of options, you issue commands back, and it reports back any stats and messages.

(This is for an app running on a remote kiosk, connected via 3G.)

Answer 1

Use a ServerSocket and listen for connections. Add the onConnect listener to tell when a client has connected and use the ProgressEvent to tell when the client has sent data over the socket. Here are two tutorials and an excerpt on how to get started with a ServerSocket:

import flash.net.ServerSocket;
import flash.events.ServerSocketConnectEvent;

private function onConnect(e:ServerSocketConnectEvent):void
{
    var incomingSocket:Socket = e.socket;
    // You can now read and write data from the socket instance
}
var server:ServerSocket = new ServerSocket();
server.addEventListener(Event.CONNECT, onConnect);
server.bind(8888); // Pass in the port number you want to listen on
server.listen();

Basic.

More complex example which accepts client data transfer.