Like the title says I want my pre-made script to automatically run only when a specific directory has a non-folder file in it. It would be great if you know of some common task schedulers, directory monitors, or even efficient scripts/services that work with old Windows servers.
Thank you
Note: Any method to accomplish this would be appreciated. I have simple never done this, and the internet has not given me a clear and efficient answer thus far.
SQL SERVER Job Agent can run power shell scripts.
Related
I have a dedicated server that runs a few lightweight game servers. The server is already running Apache. However I am cheap and the server hardware is not exactly robust and not all the servers we use run concurrently. I want to be able to generate a web page say /stats that has some info like:
Game 1: Online <uptime>
Game 2: Offline
...etc
I'm certain that I could run a script using a cronjob that just uses ps + grep logged into a file, and then parse that file for information on the server but I'm looking for a more dynamic option that checks as the page is generated.
You have at least a few options (other people may have additional suggestions beyond what is listed here):
Cron a shell script to generate a stats.html or stats.txt
PHP's shell_exec (could run ps |grep... for example) or exec
PHP's variety of posix functions may help (http://php.net/manual/en/ref.posix.php)
If you have PERL available there may be a few options there as well
My suggestion is to evaluate shell_exec or exec before any of the others.
If you need additional assistance please post what you have tried and the results.
So, as part of my daily jobs, I have to transfer a one file from our customers server to our internal server and any responses back.
Each customer effectively has one file up and one file down each day.
I have an SFTP server here that I can use and is already used manually for a few sites.
I'm looking to automate as many sites as possible using batch files on a scheduled task.
Initially, I'm looking at automating the internal side of the process.
We simple have a requests folder that needs to import from the SFTP (then delete the original on the SFTP) and a response folder which needs to copy to a 'sent' folder and then export to the SFTP (also, deleteing the original)
On the SFTP server I have a "to site" and "from site" folder. Each file is site specific followed by a variable. So SiteNameImport.<variable> and SiteNameExport.<variable>
EDIT:
I'm asking this as I'm a novice at scripting and basically have no idea what to do.
I've tried reading the automation guide on WinSCP website but a lot of it means nothing to me.
Filezilla doesn't support automation, You're better off with WinSCP. They have some scripting examples here as well as any other information you'll need to build the scripts functionality. You'll just need to add the specifics (Like deleting sent files and so on) CuteFTP is also another solution you can script with but I believe you have to pay for a licence. I suggest VBscript, Examples can be found Here for vbscript.
Does anyone know a SQL query that will purge a MediaWiki database of old revisions? My database has grown out of control, and I need to prune it to make it possible to download and manage.
I don't have shell access so, I need to do this with a SQL query.
I have tried the solution suggested here, but it doesn't work http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_talk:SpecialDeleteOldRevisions2#Deleting_only_archived_revisions
Thanks for reading :)
Nicholas
As you, I don't have shell access to my MediaWiki. So I can't do a lot of things like maintenance.
Here is my solution : host your MediaWiki web site on your computer just to do your maintenance tasks
Backup your database
Backup your MediaWiki folder
Setup Apache (the web server) on your computer
Setup MySQL on your computer
Restore your MediaWiki database on your computer
Put your MediWiki folder on the Apache root folder
Finally run the maintenance task you want using shell. I suggest you the deleteOldRevisions script
After that, rebackup the folder and the database and restore them on the remote host
Use the Maintenance extension and run the relevant maintenance scripts with it. Direct database manipulation is pure madness, and using a local LAMP install as suggested by the other answer quite cumbersome.
Shell access is really required to properly run a MediaWiki but this is a common problem, please report your experience with the extension on the talk page or file a bug if you find any.
I would like to make a complete backup of my whole joomla 1.5 based site from time to time. How would this ideally be done? Are there any common pitfalls? Not that I only have ftp access to the hosting server. Is there a step by step tutorial somewhere? I am using latest Joomgallery and Kunena 1.0.9 (Legacy mode).
Maybe there is a good way to automate this?
There's two parts of the backup you have to worry about, the database and the files.
The first part is the database. It can be backed up using something like phpMyAdmin. If you don't have this available on your server already, it's not too hard to upload and get it going yourself. From there, you can just Export the entire database to a gzip file.
The second part is the code and uploaded files. The code base shouldn't change too often, so you could probably just make one backup of this. There's a number of ways. The simplest is to just download the entire folder via FTP, though if you're Linux, I'm sure someone will know a single command line to get all the changed files (rsync?).
The database is the main thing you have to worry about though: everything else should be able to be rebuilt just by reinstalling.
I think this: http://www.joomlapack.net/ is what you need. I use it myself and it works like a charm. Both for backups and for moving my Joomla installations from developer sites and to the real site.
get an FTP synchronisation tool and keep an up-to-date copy of your site locally. Then you could run the batch script
mysqldump -hhost -uuser -p%1 schema > C:\backup.sql
to create a backup of your mysql tables at various points in time.
edit
you would have to have MySQL Server installed on your local machine and path to its bin directory in you PATH, in order to run the mysqldump command without much hassle. -p%1 would take the command-line provided password, as you wouldn't want to store passwords in your batch script.
If you only have FTP access you are in a bit of a problem, as beside all files you'll also have to backup the database. Without accessing the database, a full-backup won't do you any good.
Whatever backup strategy you choose - be sure it can handle UTF-8 correctly. Joomla 1.5 stores all content with UTF-8, even when the database charset is set on 'iso-5589-1' - so when the backup solution is detecting the database charset, some characters like € or é will result in "strange" ¬ / é - not really what you'll want.
I absolutely endorse using Joomlapack - it works great. The optional remote tools allow you to initiate the backup from a Windows desktop machine - it performs the backup and downloads it. The remote has a scheduler, and you can also set it off to backup and download a list of sites.
Joomlapack also provides a file "kickstart.php" which you copy to your empty server account along with the backup, which automates the restore procedure. You do have to create an empty database with PHPMyAdmin or similar, and you are given the opportunity to supply the database parameters (host, database, username, password) during the process.
One pitfall I did run into with this though is that some common components can have absolute URLs in their configuration - e.g. SOBI2, Virtuemart. It's then just a matter of finding the appropriate configuration file, editing it and re-uploading it.
Another problem was one archive file (either ZIP or their JPA format) got a filename with a "?" character in it (from a Linux server) and this caused a bit of a problem trying to install it locally on a Windows WAMP stack - the extract process on the ZIP file failed, and it stopped the process completing cleanly.
I suggest using automatic backup service by http://www.everlive.net
Update:
Ok, here is some more information. EverLive.net is a website where you can create a free account. Enter your website details and you are ready to take your backups withe just one click. Restore is also possible in the same way.
Further you can use automatic backup option to take automatic backups at defined intervals. Other than that, you can use the website health check service to inform you if your website is not available.
Where would you write an error log file, say ErrorLog.txt, in Windows? Keep in mind the path would need to be open to basic users for file write permissions.
I know the eventlog is a possible location for writing errors, but does it work for "user" level permissions?
EDIT: I am targeting Windows 2003, but I was posing the question in such a way as to have a "General Guideline" for where to write error logs.
As for the EventLog, I have had issues before in an ASP.NET application where I wanted to log to the Windows event log, but I had security issues causing me heartache. (I do not recall the issues I had, but remember having them.)
Have you considered logging the event viewer instead? If you want to write your own log, I suggest the users local app setting directory. Make a product directory under there. It's different on different version of Windows.
On Vista, you cannot put files like this under c:\program files. You will run into a lot of problems with it.
In .NET, you can find out this folder with this:
Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData)
And the Event Log is fairly simple to use too:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.diagnostics.eventlog.aspx
Text files are great for a server application (you did say Windows 2003). You should have a separate log file for each server application, the location is really a matter of convention to agree with administrators. E.g. for ASP.NET apps I've often seen them placed on a separate disk from the application under a folder structure that mimics the virtual directory structure.
For client apps, one disadvantage of text files is that a user may start multiple copies of your application (unless you've taken specific steps to prevent this). So you have the problem of contention if multiple instances attempt to write to the same log file. For this reason I would always prefer the Windows Event Log for client apps. One caveat is that you need to be an administrator to create an event log - this can be done e.g. by the setup package.
If you do use a file, I'd suggest using the folder Environment.SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData rather than SpecialFolder.ApplicationData as suggested by others. LocalApplicationData is on the local disk: you don't want network problems to stop you from logging when the user has a roaming profile. For a WinForms application, use Application.LocalUserAppDataPath.
In either case, I would use a configuration file to decide where to log, so that you can easily change it. E.g. if you use Log4Net or a similar framework, you can easily configure whether to log to a text file, event log, both or elsewhere (e.g. a database) without changing your app.
The standard location(s) are:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\MyApp
or
C:\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Application Data\MyApp
(aka %UserProfile%\Application Data\MyApp) which would match your user level permission requirement. It also separates logs created by different users.
Using .NET runtime, these can be built as:
AppDir=
System.Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.CommonApplicationData)
or
AppDir=
System.Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData)
followed by:
MyAppDir = IO.Path.Combine(AppDir,'MyApp')
(Which, hopefully, maps Vista profiles too).
Personally, I would suggest using the Windows event log, it's great. If you can't, then write the file to the ApplicationData directory or the ProgramData (Application Data for all users on Windows XP) directory.
The Windows event log is definitely the way to go for logging of errors. You're not limited to the "Application" log as it's possible to create a new log target (e.g. "My Application"). That may need to be done as part of setup as I'm not sure if it requires administrative privileges or not. There's a Microsoft example in C# at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307024.
Windows 2008 also has Event Log Forwarding which can be quite handy with server applications.
I agree with Lou on this, but I prefer to set this up in a configuration file like Joe said. You can use
file value="${APPDATA}/Test/log-file.txt"
("Test" could be whatever you want, or removed entirely) in the configuration file, which causes the log file to be written to "/Documents and Settings/LoginUser/Application
Data/Test" on Windows XP and to "/Users/LoginUser/AppData/Roaming/Test on Windows Vista.
I am just adding this as I just spent way too much time figuring how to make this work on Windows Vista...
This works as-is with Windows applications. To use logging in web applications, I found Phil Haack's blog entry on this to be a great resource:
http://haacked.com/archive/2005/03/07/ConfiguringLog4NetForWebApplications.aspx
%TEMP% is always a good location for logs I find.
Going against the grain here - it depends on what you need to do. Sometimes you need to manipulate the results, so log.txt is the way to go. It's simple, mutable, and easy to search.
Take an example from Joel. Fogbugz will send a log / dump of error messages via http to their server. You could do the same and not have to worry about the user's access rights on their drive.
I personally don't like to use the Windows Event Log where I am right now because we do not have access to the production servers, so that would mean that we would need to request access every time we wanted to look at the errors. It is not a speedy process unfortunately, so your troubleshooting is completely haulted by waiting for someone else. I also don't like that they kind of get lost within the ones from other applications. Sure you can sort, but it's just a bit of a nucance scrolling down. What you use will end up being a combination of personal preference coupled along with limitations of the enviroment you are working in. (log file, event log, or database)
Put it in the directory of the application. The users will need access to the folder to run and execute the application, and you can check write access on application startup.
The event log is a pain to use for troubleshooting, but you should still post significant errors there.
EDIT - You should look into the MS Application Blocks for logging if you are using .NET. They really make life easy.
Jeez Karma-killers. Next time I won't even offer a suggestion when the poster puts up an incomplete post.