1. Table of contents
2. For administrators
3. Setting up the cron script

Setting up the cron script for RED FLAGS

Tasks of the cron script

The cron script does the following:

1. Creates directories for log and user data backups
2. Starts the engine
3. Creates a backup of rfwl_users and rfwl_userfilters table (users and their saved filters)
4. Calls the helper table generator SQL script
5. Then triggers the sending of subscription emails

About run times:

• the engine can take 0 to ~ 120 minutes to fetch and process the freshest notices - it depends on the count
• the helper table generation can take ~ 2 - 30 minutes depending on your hardware

Configuring the cron script

Before running the script, you need to actualize some parameters in the beginning of the file:

Variable	Typical value	Description
BASE_DIR	/home/redflags	The base directory where the Red Flags things are
CACHE_DIR	$BASE_DIR/cache	The cache directory to be used by the engine
ENGINE_DIR	$BASE_DIR/redflags-engine	Directory where the engine is
ENGINE_JAR	$ENGINE_DIR/redflags-engine-VERSION.jar	Path of the JAR file (you can use path relative to ENGINE_DIR)
ENGINE_ARGS	--scope=auto --cache=$CACHE_DIR	Arguments to be passed to the JAR
LOCK_FILE	$BASE_DIR/__AUTO_SCRIPT_IS_RUNNING.lck	The lock file is needed to ensure there's only one cron script running at a time
LOG_DIR	$BASE_DIR/automation-logs	Directory for logs
LOG_FILE	$LOG_DIR/redflags-auto.log	Log file for the script - it will contain brief information about the operations
OUT_FILE	$LOG_DIR/$(date '+%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M').log	Output file for the engine - it will contain all output
SQL_SCRIPT	$BASE_DIR/redflags-helper-tables.sql	Path of the helper table generator SQL script
DBUSER	redflags	Databse user
DBPASS	secret	Database password
DBNAME	redflags	Database name
SEND_FILTER_EMAILS	wget -qO- http://.../send-filter-emails?secret=...	Command to trigger subscription emails
USERS_BACKUP_DIR	$BASE_DIR/backups	Directory to store backups

You don't have to specify scope and cache here in ENGINE_ARGS, you can add them to the application.yml file too, like we said above.

Also, you can modify the script to fit your needs.

Installing the cron script

To install the cron script on a Linux system to be launched every day, open the crontab for editing first:

$ crontab -e

Then append a line like this:

0 10 * * * /home/redflags/redflags-auto.sh

This will start the script every day at 10:00 AM. You can read about the cron configruation here.

We set 10:00 AM because as we experienced - at least Hungarian - notices are uploaded in the early morning hours.