In my previous article pertaining to Gemini server hosting, I suggested using a git repository to maintain capsule files. In general, this solution works well but may not be convenient if you are used to editing “on the go”. For example, I often find myself switching between devices and using multiple different git interfaces throughout the day. This can be cumbersome if you need to frequently connect/disconnect (via ssh and drawterm) to push or pull changes on the remote hosting server.
To simplify this process a bit, I recently started using cron to automate some activities on my remote hosting server. The process of creating a cron task is fairly straightforward, but I would recommend taking a look at the plan9 man pages first.
http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/8/cron
If you have never used cron before on your remote hosting server, begin by issuing the following command:
% auth/cron -c
This should create a blank cron file in /cron/[glenda]/. Once created, we can use the sam editor to add our first cron task (which will run a script called “gempull” every hour on the hour).
% sam -d /cron/[glenda]/cron
1
c
0 * * * * local $home/bin/rc/gempull
.
w
q
Now we need to create the gempull script.
% sam -d %home/bin/rc/gempull
1
c
webfs
cd /lib/gem
git/pull
.
w
q
% auth/cron
We can confirm that the cron process using the ps command.
% ps | grep cron
cron