apxctrl 0.5.0

APx500 Control Server - Remote control for Audio Precision test equipment

APx Control Server

A Flask-based web server for controlling Audio Precision APx500 test equipment remotely.

Architecture

This server acts as a shim between a Linux client and the Windows-based APx500 application. It exposes a REST API that wraps the APx500 .NET API.

┌─────────────┐      HTTP         ┌─────────────┐      .NET API      ┌──────────────┐
│   Client    │  ─────────────►   │   apxctrl   │  ───────────────►  │  APx500      │
│             │  ◄─────────────   │             │  ◄───────────────  │  Application │
└─────────────┘                   └─────────────┘                    └──────────────┘

Design Principles

• 1:1 client model: One client, one server, sequential requests
• State tracking: Server tracks APx state, loaded project (name + SHA256)

Installation

On Windows, install Python and uv:

# Install uv (Python package manager)
powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"
$env:Path = "C:\Users\$env:USERNAME\.local\bin;$env:Path"

# Install Python 3.11
uv python install 3.11.4

Install dependencies:

uv pip install -e .

Running tests

uv run py.test -v

Running the Server

Allow access through firewall

netsh firewall add portopening TCP 5000 "apxctrl"
netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="apxctrl TCP Port 5000" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=5000
netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="apxctrl TCP Port 5000" dir=out action=allow protocol=TCP localport=5000

Basic usage of server:

uv run apxctrl --kill-existing

Note that you can't run this from a no-GUI terminal (like an SSH session), it will not work.

With options:

Command Line Options

Option	Description	Default
--kill-existing	Kill running APx500 processes on startup	False
--host HOST	Host to bind to	0.0.0.0
--port PORT	Port to bind to	5000
--debug	Enable Flask debug mode	False

Basic usage of client (demonstrates API usage):

uv run apxctrl-client --help