Scheduling website updates from my server
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- jayoh
I will soon have a MediaTemple account and will be reselling space to clients. Can anyone with a similar server advise me how to schedule HTML page updates in advance (by time)?
Is there server software that will do this or something free they give you on there?
- vaxorcist0
CRON jobs?
you can set up cron to run PERL or Python scripts, and/or other methods...
need more info to know what you mean to do...
- airey0
srry, no idea what you're on about?
i do the same thing and subhost about 40 clients under my mt account so if i can offer any info i would but really no idea what you're on about at all?
- vaxorcist0
shamelessly stolen from URL above...
Use the following steps to get cron jobs working on a Media Temple Grid Server:
Log into your (mt) AccountCenter and go to your WebControl panel.
Click on the "Cron Jobs" icon to enter the cron configuration page.
Select the "Add a new cron job" button.
Enter an email address for the "Output email". Note:Leave this blank if you don't want constant emails.
Enter the following in the "command to run" text box:
curl http://www.example.com/cron.php
where "example.com" is your domain name.
Under "Scheduling Settings" select how often you want your cron job to run.
Note the Media Temple will not allow a cron job to run more often than "every 5 minutes".
To setup a cron job to run once an hour:
Under the "minutes" entry, specify the minute value on which the cron job will start each hour.
Then select the following radio boxes: hour, day, month, day of the week.
- jayoh0
What I mean is to be able to schedule a clients website updates in advance. So I can create the content (or page revision) in advance and upload it to the server BUT somehow schedule the HTML page replacement for a date in the future.
- vaxorcist0
some CMS's offer that... publish on date x...
alternately a small PERL or Python script could do this via cron, by copying the files from date x on date x to the public_html folder....
- jayoh0
seems like the thing vax! I was kinda hoping it didn't involve PERL,Python or some other language I had no clue about - but I am sure I'll find the right script.
I'll have a look at CRON too.
Thanks
- airey0
yeah, that's a cms issue or i guess you could find an ftp app that would allow a scheduled file upload. it's certainly not a hosting issue.
- lukus_W0
What do you want to do, and why? Maybe there's another way to achieve it?
- jayoh0
@airey:
I'm not using a CMS (or at least not one with that feature). You're correct, it's not a hosting issue, it's a content management issue. I just thought that it could be solved by some server-side software that could move HTML files from one folder and overwrite the old ones in the public HTML folder. You'd think that would be something most content publishers, designers or developers would use a lot.
My issue with the scheduled FTP is my machine is not always on - the web server would be though.@lukus:
I don't know how else to explain this - it's quite simple. I'm just trying to schedule a HTML file update on a web-server.So if, for example, my client has a sale on a certain day (let's say 4th of July) and I want to schedule the homepage content to be updated on July 5th to remove the details of the sale, but to automate the file overwriting at midnight July 5th...
- whatthefunk0
what about an automated ftp client
Bulletproof (never used but maybe the event manager will do the trick)
http://download.cnet.com/BulletP…
- whatthefunk0
another list of possible mac only solutions - http://www.macorchard.com/filetr…
- lukus_W0
@jayoh;
I think you need to get involved with using content management systems. These days it's worth using one, even for the very simplest sites.
Scheduling the time content needs to be published / unpublished is something most CMSs can do easily.
- vaxorcist0
CMS with scheduled updates is best..... but it does involve a rethink and a learning curve.... possibly redoing a whole lot.. but it should be worth it in the long run....
separating design from content can save your sanity
Things like scheduled FTP's can be very kludgey and duct-tape-like.... and require a computer that "wakes up" from "being asleep" and more random things can mess up..... potentially causing big client relationship problems....
- that's what i wanted to avoid (well, I actually wanted to avoid both)jayoh