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 Glossary

A-Z glossary of PageSeeder concepts

Scheduled jobs

A publish script can be scheduled to run at set times using the scheduler.

Configuration

Scheduled publish events are configured in an XML file which must be located in a certain location. For a specific project, this location is:

/template/[project]/publish/schedule-config.xml

Here is a basic example of configuration file:

<schedule>
  <event>
    <start datetime="2010-07-15T07:00:00+10:00" />
    <repeat  minutes="4"
             until="2010-07-15T10:00:00+10:00" />
    <target name="create-comment" username="system-comments">
      <description>Create Comments</description>
      <param name="folder-name"
             value="tutorials" />
      <param name="max-size"
             value="10" />
    </target>
  </event>
  <event>
    <start datetime="2010-07-14T00:00:00+10:00" />
      <repeat days="1" 
              daysofweek="mon,tue,wed,thu,fri"
              until="2010-08-14T00:00:00+10:00" />
      <target name="generate-summary" username="jsmith">
        <description>Produce Daily Summary</description>
      </target>
  </event>
</schedule>

In the previous example, two events are added to the scheduler. When these events are run, the project corresponding to the script context. That is to say, there is no document being published, only the group properties (for the project) are sent to the Ant script (see PageSeeder’s Publish parameters for more information).

The username attribute requires PageSeeder v6 or higher. It means that the script runs with the corresponding user’s permissions and is able to do anything that user can do. See following note about permissions in PageSeeder v5.

A publish event must have a start/@datetime, a target/@name and description. Optional fields of the events are: a repeat frequency and a list of param.

Repeat frequency is defined by a repeat interval unit (only one of three are allowed: @minutes, @hours or @days) and the value of the interval. An optional @until attribute is the end datetime for the repeat field.

An optional @daysofweek attribute restricts the event to run on the days listed and requires a repeat interval of 1 day or less.

Here are examples of repeat frequencies:

<repeat days="7" />

<repeat hours="24" until="2010-12-31T00:00:00+10:00" />

<repeat minutes="15" />

<repeat days="1" daysofweek="thu,fri,sat,sun"/>

Params are the parameters sent to the Ant script, there can be as many as needed.

The timezone offset in start/@datetime is used for the initial start time but all subsequent start times are automatically adjusted for daylight savings time using the server timezone.

Ant script

The corresponding Ant script must be on the ps-publisher in the following location and contain targets with the names specified in the publish-config.xml.

/template/[project]/schedule/build.xml

In PageSeeder v5 a jsession ID/token is not available to the publish script so it needs a username and password to access PageSeeder. These can be supplied using the <ps:config> task as follows:

<ps:config file="pageseeder.properties" />

with the following file pageseeder.properties in the same folder as the build.xml.

username=system
password=mypassword

When a password is in a file like this it is more secure to configure it as an API account in case someone gets a copy of the file. API accounts can only access PageSeeder from specified IP addresses and can be configured by adding the following properties for example to the global.properties :

apiAccountUsernames=system
apiAccountIPs=127.0.0.1

View publish script logs

After configuring the script on the Publish scripts page located under Templates in the Administration menu, click the refresh button at the top right of of the table of publish scripts.

You can now edit the script or click open folder to go to the Template files page.

To view the publish logs, go to the System administration menu > Logs > Publish logs (system page).

Testing and pausing scripts

Go to the Publisher page on the Administration menu > System administration > Server status > Publisher.

Current jobs

All the publish jobs running on the server are listed – each job can be monitored and canceled.  The cancel button is used to send a request to cancel the job.

Scheduled jobs

All the scheduled jobs for the server are also listed, along with their configured details, which can be useful for debugging. The refresh button is available to load any modifications in the configuration file.

They can be tested without waiting for the scheduled time – click the Run now button to test or Pause/Continue if required. 

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