[comp.sys.next] Crontab help needed

jiro@shaman.com (Jiro Nakamura) (02/28/91)

In article <1991Feb26.103456.159@hulaw1.harvard.edu> roth2@hulaw1.harvard.edu writes:
>I've recently connected my NeXT to a uucp host and all is (finally) working
>well.  I have one minor problem, however.  As is I set my crontab to poll
>once an hour, but more often then not during the day my host will be busy.
>I need a script -- or to know how to right one -- to set the crontab so that
>once it initiates a call to my host it keeps on trying until it gets through,
>and then waits until the next time it's reinvoked at started up afresh.
>Can anyone help?? Perhaps someone can send me a copy of a crontab that does
>this or something like it and I can go from there?
>Thanx in advance.

   Have you tried the uupoll -n command in conjunction with uucico?

   For example:
   	uupoll -n uunet
   will queue a null job and
	uucico -r1
   will poll all systems with jobs waiting, so.....


   0,15,30,45 * * * *	uucp	/usr/lib/uucp/uucico -r1
   59 * * * *	uucp		/usr/bin/uupoll -n uunet

   should do the job for you. What happens is:
	At 59 past the hour, uupoll leaves a null request
	At 0 past the hour, uucico will look at the queue:
		Aha! Request present, poll uunet.
		But if it is busy, it will leave the request standing.
	At 15 past the hour, it will check again:
		Aha! Request present, poll uunet.
		Transfer data both ways, clear queue.
	At 30 past the hour, etc.......


  Problems with this system: If people are continuously mailing stuff
out of your site, it will poll every fifteen minutes as the queue becomes
full of jobs....

	- Jiro Nakamura

    

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