I realize that a TCL policy is the right solution to my problem, but I obstinantly continued to try to find an applet solution. I'm glad I did, because I learned a few things. Below is a simple applet-based HTTP GET client using the copy CLI command with an http:// path as the source. The titchy part is that special work needs to be done to handle the "?" character (needed in HTTP to actually pass any information from the router to the web server via HTTP)
The idea is to use this kind of IOS CLI command:
Router#copy http://10.10.10.10/log?ifname=Vi2.11&name=mechanic&addr=10.10.69.23 flash:log
...as a way to push information to a web app (called "log" in this case).
Thanks to https://supportforums.cisco.com/thread/140658? for knowing about "Control-V" is an escape character to enter a "?" in to IOS command line.
But I found that I couldn't just pick up this command and put it in an EEM action cli command statement. When I did, the question mark was being stripped off before the HTTP request got to the web server. I fixed it by first embedding a Control-V (by doing Control-V Control-V) before embedding the ? (by doing Control-V ?). Apparantly there are two levels of interpolation by the IOS shell in this situation. So I created a variable called q for the ?, and another called cv for a Control-V. (Thanks to hint from https://supportforums.cisco.com/message/3681133.)
So here's the applet, but be wary that action lines 001 and 002 have to be hand typed because I'm sure the copy&paste from my terminal emulator into this web site, and the same from the web site to your terminal emulator, has stripped off the control characters.
event manager applet HTTPTEST
event none
action 001 set q ? ! This must be Control-V then ?
action 002 set cv ^V ! This must be Control-V then Control-V
action 010 cli command "enable"
action 020 cli command "configure terminal"
action 030 cli command "file prompt quiet"
action 040 cli command "end"
action 050 set url "http://10.10.50.13/log"
action 051 append url "$cv"
action 052 append url "$q"
action 060 append url "ifname=Vi2.11&name=mechanic&addr=10.10.69.23"
action 070 puts "$url"
action 080 cli command "copy $url flash:log"
action 090 cli command "enable"
action 091 cli command "configure terminal"
action 092 cli command "no file prompt quiet"
action 093 cli command "end"
To use, change action 050 to set the correct URL for your web server and web app, and action 060 to the information you want to send to the web server.
Does IOS have an equivalent to Unix /dev/null that I can use as the target of the CLI copy command?
Another note: The IOS copy command can also use an http:// path as the target of a copy ("copy flash: http:"). It appears to the the PUT command, which makes sense given its purpose. There doesn't appear to be a way to do POST (other than using TCL, which is what I'll do in the long run).
