• The /usr/pppl/bin/ directory on nstxops is used for automatic scripts in support of NSTX. Anyone in the nstx_sw unix group may write into the directory and the necessary associated files.
• Everything that should be started automatically for NSTX should be in the nstx script. These files are scripts that have been tested to run appropriately with a start, stop or restart parameter.

  An example of such a script is efitdb. When it receives a START parameter, it executes the following:

         su - nstxops -c /usr/pppl/bin/db/efitdb.cron
      

  "su - nstxops" runs the job under the owner name nstxops. The efitdb.cron file simply contains the following lines:

         source /usr/pppl/bin/cron.sh
         idl /usr/pppl/bin/db/efitdb_cron.pro
      

  cron.sh sets the environmental variables, such as your unix PATH variable, necessary for the idl script to run. efitdb_cron.pro could be any IDL code. Note that no arguments can be passed to the IDL code with this method, so input variables must be from a file, environmental variables, etc.
• A program called sentry monitors these jobs every five minutes, and, if it is not running, invokes the script with a start parameter and sends email to users in the mailing list nstxops.
• Note that if you add files to this system and want others in the nstx_sw group to be able to edit them, use the following commands after they are tested:

         chgrp nstx_sw *
         chmod g+w *
      

updated: 1-Oct-2004
by: Bill Davis