LinkScan for Unix. Reference Manual.

Section 8

Scheduling LinkScan on Unix Systems

The following example is provided to assist those users who wish to run LinkScan as a cron job. The crontab system is a standard Unix utility that enables jobs to be executed automatically according to some regular schedule. On most Unix systems, see man crontab or man 5 crontab for help.

1. Save any existing configured cron jobs to a file (for example, cron.job) using the following shell command:

   crontab -l > cron.job
   

2. Edit the file cron.job and append an additional entry for LinkScan containing something like:

   40 8 * * 0,1,2,3,4,5,6 /usr/linkscan/linkscan.cron
   

   This will execute /usr/linkscan/linkscan.cron at 08:40am each day. Adjust the pathname to linkscan.cron accordingly.

3. Submit this to the crontab system with the following shell command:

   crontab cron.job
   

   You can check that it's been scheduled with:

   crontab -l
   

4. Edit the linkscan.cron file -- the following example file is automatically installed in the LinkScan directory:

   #!/bin/sh
   
   # Set current working directory
   cd /usr/linkscan/
   
   # Execute LinkScan
   /usr/local/bin/perl linkscan.pl -project proja
   /usr/local/bin/perl linkscan.pl -project projb
   
   # Execute LinkScan/Dispatch (if required)
   /usr/local/bin/perl dispatch.pl -project proja -options
   
   # Execute command line reports (if required)
   # Must set environnment variable for these
   # setenv linkscan linkscan
   export linkscan=linkscan
   /usr/local/bin/perl linkscan.cgi -project proja -options
   

   See the following for a summary of the available command line switches/options:

   • linkscan.pl options
   • dispatch.pl options
   • linkscan.cgi options

   Please note the following points:

   • You must set execute permissions on this file -- chmod 755 linkscan.cron

   • You must explicitly set the current working directory to the LinkScan directory before executing LinkScan.

   • You must specify the Project name on the command line to prevent LinkScan from prompting the (absent) user to select a Project.

   • crontabs are normally executed with minimal path/environment settings so you may need to initialize some things explicitly that are normally handled by your .login, .profile, .cshrc files. That is why the above example includes the full pathname to the perl executable since it is not safe to assume that /usr/local/bin/ has been included in the crontab PATH.

   • You must run set the environment variable linkscan before executing linkscan.cgi via the shell or a script.

LinkScan for Unix. Reference Manual. Section 8. Scheduling LinkScan on Unix Systems
LinkScan Version 12.3
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