Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Keeping a background Frontier 6/Mac server running smoothly

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:6/19/1999; 1:25:54 PM
Topic:Keeping a background Frontier 6/Mac server running smoothly
Msg #:7581
Prev/Next:7580 / 7582

A couple of weeks ago I installed a virgin copy of Frontier 6 on a Mac system running an old version of Mac System 7. I use the Mac to offload tasks from the NT server, things like batch-loading of the RSS files for My.UserLand.Com and sending Scripting News bulletins.

This server is doing all its work in response to XML-RPC messages, and in timed processes running under the scheduler. Frontier has trouble doing this 7-by-24. It runs out of sockets, or crashes in a "GUSI" routine. Whatever. I'm not sure if the problem is in the TCP routines in the Mac, or in Frontier, and to a major extent it doesn't matter. I just want the server to run smoothly and now I think I have a formula that works, and want to share it.

An AppleScript

First, I wrote an AppleScript that watches to see if Frontier is running, and if not it launches it.

on idle
	tell application "Finder"
		if not (exists application process "UserLand Frontier™") then
			try  
				open application "UserLand Frontier™"
			on error
			end try
		end if
	end tell
	return 10 --run once every 10 seconds
end idle


on run
	idle {}
end run

This script is saved as a runnable application, with an alias in the Startup Items folder so it launches when the system boots. Every ten seconds it checks if Frontier is running and relaunches it.

A Frontier agent that runs every hour

Second, I wrote a Frontier agent that quits every five hours.

if not defined (scratchpad.cthoursrunning)
	scratchpad.cthoursrunning = 0
if scratchpad.cthoursrunning == 5 
	delete (@scratchpad.cthoursrunning) //signal to reset
	filemenu.save ()
	filemenu.quit ()
msg ((5 - scratchpad.cthoursrunning) + " hours till we quit.")
scratchpad.cthoursrunning++
clock.sleepfor (60 * 60) //sleep for an hour

I put the agent at system.agents.quitter.

It works!

You can see that it works from the log on the home page of My.UserLand.Com. It's updating every hour. Now I can move on to tackle other problems.

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