Sample 1.3

Sample is the missing link in the POSIX-compliant cron-family of task scheduling tools. The project monitors files on a user-by-user basis and waits for their timestamp/filesize to hit a threshold thereby executing a specified command to handle the files.

Here are some key features of "Sample":

· POSIX-compliant, portable on unix-based systems.
· Simple, easy to understand syntax and quick to learn.
· Versatile, capable for use in many situations.
· Fast, run quickly and restricted if need be.
· Small, leave a small footprint in memory and execution.
· Expandable, can grow without changing the core syntax.
· Secure, as much as possible running arbitrary commands.

Sample will only "sample" matched files if the active user has _write_access to the file and it does not contain non-printable characters, it will not process the matched file at any level otherwise.

Sample will only process unique users with unique home directories, this is done on a first-come frist-serve basis. So, if a user or home directory is first in the /etc/passwd file (including network users) and another entry has the same user or home directory that other user will not be processed at any level.

Installation:

To install sample, follow the usual steps:

# cd sample-VERSION/

On most systems, simply:

# ./configure

On OSX, /usr/bin/sample already exists, so use the following to rename sample/samples/sampled to fsample/fsamples/fsampled:

# ./configure --enable-f-prefix

# make

# make install

Start the daemon, this will need to be placed in your rc script(s) as well.

This can also be launched by directly executing "/path/to/sampled":

# samputil start

As a user, to edit your ~/.sample file (with validation/etc):

$ sample

To test if the sample daemon (sampled) is running properly for the active user run the following set of commands. It will attempt to delete ~/testfile if the file modification time is older than 1 second (essentially immediately). Sampled processes every minute, on the minute, so the file
should disappear right around when the system clock hits :00 seconds.

$ touch ~/testfile
$ samples add ~/testfile M 1s "rm -f %s"

What's New in This Release:

· Changed support for configure's --prefix argument. If supplied, will now place all sample-related files inside that prefix directory. If the argument is not supplied sample-related files will be placed in an assumed "best" standard place ("--prefix" is the only generic configure option used)
· Added "%i" inode string replacement variable for commands.



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