calling a script from another using cron

jonnyfolk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have a script on a server for which I do not have the facility of setting up a cron job. The script in question simply does some house keeping and I simply need to call the script from my browser to activate it.

I set up a script on a server where I do have cron using Location: to call up the housekeeping script.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use CGI ':standard';

my $target = "http://www.mysite.com/cgi-bin/cd.pl";

print "Location: $target\n\n";
[download]

However this doesn't do the trick as in calling the script itself - it simply emails me with the URL! (Which at least reminds me to do it :))

How can I call the script in such a way as to make it run automatically?

Comment on calling a script from another using cron Download Code

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Re: calling a script from another using cron by Corion (Patriarch) on Feb 08, 2004 at 10:11 UTC
This is not how http works. Your cron script will need to make a http request to your other server and trigger the worker script there. The easiest way is to use LWP::Simple : `use strict; use LWP::Simple; my $url = 'http://www.example.com'; get $url or die "Couldn't retrieve $url";` [download] Your script simply did one thing, as you witnessed already, it just printed out the location, which does not accomplish anything unless you are a browser that interprets the `Location:` header as something to act upon...	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: calling a script from another using cron by jonnyfolk (Vicar) on Feb 08, 2004 at 12:23 UTC
Many thanks - I hadn't realised that `Location:` was for browser interpretation. Should've, of course - Doh! Qick'n'easy fix, too...	[reply] [d/l]
Re: calling a script from another using cron by davis (Vicar) on Feb 08, 2004 at 10:12 UTC
However this doesn't do the trick as in calling the script itself - it simply emails me with the URL Of course it does. Look at what your script does - it only `print`s a text string. You want it to masquerade as a browser - use LWP::Simple (there are many, many other choices as well). `#!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; use LWP::Simple; my $target = "http://www.mysite.com/cgi-bin/cd.pl"; $content = get($target); #Actually send the request to the webserver die "Couldn't get $target!" unless defined $content;` [download] davis It's not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: calling a script from another using cron by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Feb 08, 2004 at 17:49 UTC
Or you could simple make use of the `GET` utility that comes with `LWP`, and put `* * * * * /path/to/GET http://www.mysite.com/cgi-bin/cd.pl > /dev/ +null` [download] in the crontab file. No additional program needed. Abigail	[reply] [d/l]