Tag: Projects

Watching for file changes on a shared linux web server

JonTheNiceGuy Leave a comment

$NEWPROJECT has a script which runs daily to produce a file which will be available for download, but aside from that one expected daily task, there shouldn’t be any unexpected changes to the content on the website.

As I’m hosting this on a shared webhost, I can’t install Tripwire or anything like that, and to be honest, for what I’m using it for, I probably don’t need it. So, instead, I wrote my own really simple file change monitor which runs as a CronJob.

Here’s the code:

#! /bin/bash
# This file is called scan.sh
function sha512sum_files() {
find $HOME/$DIR/* -type f -exec sha512sum '{}' \; >> $SCAN_ROOT/current_status
}
SCAN_ROOT=$HOME/scan
mv $SCAN_ROOT/current_status $SCAN_ROOT/old_status
for DIR in site_root media/[A-Za-z]*
do
sha512sum_files
done
diff -U 0 $SCAN_ROOT/old_status $SCAN_ROOT/current_status

And here’s my crontab:


MAILTO="my.email@add.ress"
# Minute Hour Day of Month Month Day of Week Command
# (0-59) (0-23) (1-31) (1-12 or Jan-Dec) (0-6 or Sun-Sat)
0,15,30,45 * * * * /home/siteuser/scan/scan.sh

And lastly, a sample of the output

--- /home/siteuser/scan/old_status 2010-10-25 14:30:03.000000000 -0700
+++ /home/siteuser/scan/current_status 2010-10-25 14:45:06.000000000 -0700
@@ -4 +4 @@
-baeb2692403619398b44a510e8ca0d49db717d1ff7e08bf1e210c260e04630606e9be2a3aa80f7db3d451e754e189d4578ec7b87db65e6729697c735713ee5ed /home/siteuser/site_root/LIBRARIES/library.php
+c4d739b3e0a778009e0d53315085d75cf8380ac431667c31b23e4b24d4db273dfc98ffad6842a1e5f59d6ea84c33ecc73bed1437e6105475fefd3f3a966de118 /home/siteuser/site_root/LIBRARIES/library.php
@@ -71 +71 @@
-88ddd746d70073183c291fa7da747d7318caa697ace37911db55afce707cd1634f213f340bb4870f1194c48292f846adaf006ad61b4ff1cb245972c26962b42d /home/siteuser/site_root/api.php
+d79e8a6e6c3db39e07c22e7b7485050007fd265ad7e9bdda728866f65638a8aa534f8cb51121a68e9287f384e8694a968b48d840d37bcd805c117ff871e7c618 /home/siteuser/site_root/api.php

While this isn’t the most technically sound way (I’m sure) of checking for file changes, at least it gives me some idea (to within 15 minutes or so) of what files have been changed, so gives me a time to start hunting.

Weirdness with Bash functions and Curl

JonTheNiceGuy Leave a comment

I’m writing a script (for $NEW_PROJECT) which, due to my inability to figure out how to compile a certain key library on Dreamhost, runs SSH to a remote box (with public/private keys and a limitation on what that key can *actually* achieve) to perform an off-box process of some data.

After it’s all done, I am using curl to call the API of the project like this:

curl --fail -F "file=@`pwd`/file" -F "other=form" -F "options=are_set" http://user:password@server/api/function

Because I’m making a few calls against the API, I wrote a function like this:

function callAPI() {
API=$1
if [ "$2" != "" ]
then
API=$API/$2
fi
if [ "$3" != "" ]
then
API=$API/$3
fi
if [ "${OPTION}" != "" ]
then
FORM="${OPTION}"
else
FORM=""
fi
if [ $DEBUG == "1" ]
then
echo "curl --fail ${FORM} http://${USER}:**********@${SITE}/api/${API}"
fi
eval `curl --fail ${FORM} http://${USER}:${PASS}@${SITE}/api/${API} 2>/dev/null`
}

and then call it like this:

OPTION="-F \"file=@filename\" -F \"value=one\" -F \"value=two\""
callAPI function

For all the rest of my API calls (those which ask for data, rather than supply it, these calls work *fine*, but as soon as I tell it to post a form containing a file, it throws this error:

curl: (26) failed creating form post data

I did some digging around, and found that this means that the script can’t read from the file. The debug line, when run outside of the script processed the command perfectly, so what’s going on?

To be honest, in the end, I just copied the command into the body of the code, and I’m praying that I can figure out why I can’t compile this library on Dreamhost, before I need to work out why running that curl line doesn’t work from inside a function.

A summary of my ongoing Open Source projects

JonTheNiceGuy Leave a comment

I’m a pretty frequent contributor to various Open Source projects, either when I’m starting them myself, or getting involved in someone else’s project. I thought, as I’m probably stretching myself a bit thin with these projects right now, I’d list off what I’m doing, so I can find out whether anyone’s interested in getting involved in any of them. Read More

Need to quickly integrate some IRC into your app? Running Linux? Try ii

JonTheNiceGuy Leave a comment

I know, it looks like a typo, but the script ii makes IRC all better for small applications which don’t need their own re-implementation of an IRC client.

I know it’s available under Ubuntu and Debian (apt-get install ii), but I don’t know what other platforms it’s available for.

It’s not much use as a user-focused IRC client (although it would vaguely work like that with a little scripting!), but for scripts it works like a charm.

Read More