Running Wusage Automatically?

Since wusage is intended to be run on a regular basis, for the most part either daily, weekly or monthly, many administrators run the program automatically using automatic scheduling tools. In addition, Wusage 6.0 Patchlevel 23 and later offer a built-in scheduling facility.

Updating Statistics Through the Built-In Scheduler

Macintosh users and many Windows 95/98/NT users will prefer to use the built-in scheduling facility. This facility provides a simple, user-friendly way to produce daily, weekly, and monthly updates.

To take advantage of the built-in scheduler, you must leave Wusage running at all times. You should NOT use the -t command line option to set an idle timeout, as this would cause the program to exit. If the program is not running, it can't run scheduled tasks at the appropriate times! For this reason, Unix and some NT customers will probably want to use the standard scheduling facilities of their operating systems instead.

Note to Unix users: you should probably use cron instead of the built-in scheduling facilities. However, if you choose to use the built-in scheduler, you will need to specify the command line option -t 0 to prevent Wusage from automatically shutting down if it is not accessed via a web browser after 20 minutes. You will probably also want to start the program in the background.

How to Schedule a Configuration File

To schedule a configuration file for automatic updates, first start the Wusage program if it is not already running. Second, through the web interface, open the configuration file you are interested in. You should now see a web page with the heading "Control Page."

Scroll down until you see a button on the right labeled "Schedule Updates." To the left of this button, you will see a description of the current schedule settings for this configuration file, if any.

Click on the "Schedule Updates" button. The scheduling wizard will then prompt you for the necessary information.

Note: even though you may have set your configuration file for monthly reporting, you can still choose daily updates if you wish.

VERY IMPORTANT: Wusage will automatically analyze your logs at the scheduled time, if you have left the program running. If you have not left the program running, causing Wusage to "miss" a scheduled update, the program will begin analyzing your logs the next time you start the program.

If you attempt to use the program while a scheduled task is in progress, Wusage will tell you so and display the number of log lines analyzed so far. Old log data that has been analyzed before does not count toward the number of log lines analyzed, so do not be alarmed if the count is zero.

Updating Statistics Using `cron` and `AT`

Unix users, as well as some Windows 95/98/NT users, will want to use the standard scheduling facilities that are provided with those operating systems.

Under Unix, this is commonly accomplished using the standard Unix program cron. Cron can be used to schedule "jobs" to be run at particular times without human intervention.

New cron jobs are installed using the crontab command. To edit your crontab file, enter the following command:

crontab -e

This command typically launches the vi editor. You can, alternatively, create a text file using the editor of your choice and submit it to cron with the following command:

crontab filename

A typical crontab entry (line of the crontab file) to run wusage resembles the following entry:

0 1 * * 0 /full/path/to/wusage -c /full/path/to/configuration/file

The five digits (or asterisks) correspond to minutes, hours, days of the month, months, and weekdays, respectively. If a particular digit is not important to schedule the job, an asterisk is given. For instance, we want the job to run every month, not just in specific months, so an asterisk is specified for the fourth digit. Sunday is day zero (or seven). For more information, use the Unix commands man crontab and man 5 crontab.

"What about non-Unix platforms?"

Windows NT supports the AT command, which can also be used to schedule programs to run at particular times. Scheduling of this sort is not a standard feature of older client operating systems such as MSDOS and Windows 95. However, Windows 98, does offer a simple scheduler as a standard feature; an icon for that scheduler is typically displayed in the system tray, and it is not difficult to configure it to run Wusage at the command line. See the command line options section of the manual for more information.

Note: Boutell.Com does not provide basic assistance with your operating system's commands. Please consult the online help of your operating system if you have questions about the basic operation of cron, AT, or the scheduling service of your particular operating system. This document is intended to provide an overview of the services that may be available to you as part of your operating system. If you find your operating system's scheduling facilities to be too compliated, we recommend that you use the built-in scheduling capabilities of Wusage instead.

Table of Contents

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Updating Statistics Through the Built-In Scheduler

How to Schedule a Configuration File

Updating Statistics Using cron and AT

Updating Statistics Using `cron` and `AT`