Administration Guide for Cisco Media Experience Engine 3500 Release 3.3
- Updated:
- January 11, 2016
Chapter: Folder Attendant Directories and Watches
Folder Attendant Directories and Watches
Introduction to Folder Attendant
Set up directories and watches from the Folder Attendant Administration page.
To access the Folder Attendant Administration page:
Figure 12-1 shows the Folder Attendant Administration Page.
Figure 12-1 Folder Attendant Administration Page
The Folder Attendant Administration page displays the directories and watches that have been set up. It includes the information described in Table 12-1 .
Note
Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required.
You can also filter the directories that are displayed on this page to view only those directories of interest.
Basic Workflow
The first time you use the Folder Attendant, you must set up the system. The setup tasks listed below are performed once:
- Establishing watch folders on the appropriate hosts (at time of installation)
- Creating Roles
- Creating New Users
- Setting Up Directories
- Setting Up Watches
After initial setup, these tasks are only performed on an as-needed basis and are not part of the typical daily workflow.
Typical Daily Workflow
Note The actual steps you perform may vary slightly depending on your particular needs.
Step 1 From the Toolbar, open Folder Attendant. All components of Folder Attendant launch automatically upon startup.
Step 2 Verify that the required directories and watches have been defined. Update the directories and watches as needed.
Step 3 Open the Job Status Monitor to monitor the jobs currently being processed. As jobs are automatically submitted from the watched directories, they appear on the Job Status Monitor. When jobs are complete, they are reaped (removed) from here based on the Auto Reap interval. See also: Job Status, and Status Settings (System Administration).
Step 4 Monitor the status of each job being processed. If any jobs are not complete, double-click the job, and select the Tasks tab to view the status of the tasks for each job being processed. If any jobs fail, select the Errors tab to view a summary of errors that have occurred. Take the necessary actions to correct any jobs that have failed. Make appropriate corrections and resubmit or reschedule the job.
Step 5 From the Job Status Monitor, you can view the XML code for the selected job to see more detail on how it is being processed. You can also reschedule, stop, or delete a job, or reset a job's priority. See also: Job Status
Step 6 When jobs are running, open the System Status Monitor to view the tasks being processed on each host. See also: System Status.
Setting Up Directories
One of the key features of Folder Attendant is its ability to monitor directories and automatically initiate job processing when new or updated media/XML files appear. When a new or updated file meeting the criteria specified appears in a directory being monitored, Folder Attendant automatically initiates job processing based on the configured job parameters settings, such as profile and priority.
You must first define directories to be watched on the Folder Attendant Administration page. Then multiple watches can be configured per directory.
From the Folder Attendant Administration page, you can perform the following directory-related tasks:
- Filtering Directories
- Adding Directories
- Editing Directories
- Deleting Directories
- Enabling or Disabling Directories
Filtering Directories
If you are watching a large number of directories, you may want to filter the data being displayed so that you can view only the directories of interest. The Filter command allows you to display a subset of all the directories. You can filter directories by any of the following parameters (or any combination of these parameters):
Note Even if directories are filtered from the Folder Attendant Administration page, they are still being watched and processed as usual. This function only limits the number of directories displayed on the page.
Step 1 From the Toolbox, click Folder Attendant. All directories that have been defined are displayed. Figure 12-2 shows All Directories (No Filters Applied).
Figure 12-2 All Directories (No Filters Applied)
Step 2 Select the filter button from the menu bar. Figure 12-3 shows Folder Attendant Filter Settings Pop-Up.
Figure 12-3 Folder Attendant Filter Settings Pop-Up
Step 3 Complete one or more fields on the page to specify how to filter the directory display.
Adding Directories
See also: Monitoring FTP Directories.
Step 1 From the Toolbox, click Folder Attendant.
Step 2 From the Directory drop-down menu, select Add. Figure 12-4 shows Adding Directories. The Directory fields display on the Folder Attendant Administration page. Figure 12-5 shows Directory Fields.
Figure 12-4 Adding Directories
Step 3 Enter the appropriate information in each of the fields as described in Table 12-3 .
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Enter the fully-qualified path name of the directory (use either a UNC or local path or the URL of an FTP folder to be monitored). |
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Check this box to configure a watch of the main directory and all of its subdirectories. |
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Enter (in seconds) how frequently you want Folder Attendant to check for new files. |
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Enter the number of times Folder Attendant will attempt to resubmit the job if it is unsuccessful. Note Folder Attendant will not attempt to resubmit failed jobs. (See also: Monitoring Jobs.) |
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From the drop-down menu, select the method to be used by Folder Attendant to validate new files to determine if they are complete and ready to be processed.
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Enter the number of seconds to delay when copying a file to another destination. Note This option is only active when the file-size-delay or file-modified-delay Copy Complete Method is selected. |
Step 4 Save the new directory. The new directory displays on the Folder Attendant Administration page, and a message displays indicating the new directory was added successfully. The directories are sorted by alphabetical order (based on the path name), so the new directory may not appear at the end of the list.
Note A watch has not been defined for the directory, if the Profile, Priority, and # Files fields are blank.
Monitoring FTP Directories
In addition to monitoring a normal directory, Folder Attendant can monitor an FTP directory. To enable this feature, set the directory path to an FTP URL (see also Adding Directories) as follows:
ftp://[username:password]@hostname[:port]/path[;passive=yes|no]
- username = optional FTP login username; default is anonymous
- password = optional FTP password; default is ""
- hostname = FTP server hostname
- port = optional FTP server port; default is 21
- path = directory path to monitor.
– To specify an absolute path (%2f is escaped /)
ftp://username:password@hostname/%2fpath
– To specify a relative path. Current path is set to <UserLoginDirectory>/path
ftp://username:password@hostname/path
For FTP directories, the Copy Complete Method must be set to file-size-delay. In addition, the delete-source-after-process option must be set to false.
The FA will detect new or modified files and will submit the source media file with the FTP URL as follows:
<source-name>ftp://[username:password]@hostname[:port]/path</source-name>
Note ● The %2f will be stripped off
- This FTP source-name will leverage the FTP pre-processor planner in the API to generate the appropriate Fileman and FilemanNet tasks.
- In order to monitor the FTP directory, the FA uses the FTP directory listing command. The implementation of the FTP directory listing command varies by FTP server (Windows, UNIX version, etc.). The FA uses a list of regular expressions to support several popular FTP directory listing formats. This list may need to be modified to support new formats.
Editing Directories
Use this procedure to edit an existing directory.
Step 1 From the Toolbox, click Folder Attendant.
Step 2 Select the directory, and from the Directory drop-down, click Edit. Select the directory to be edited. See Figure 12-6.
Figure 12-6 Select the Directory to be Edited
Step 3 Update the information in any of the fields, as needed. See Figure 12-7.
Figure 12-7 Edit Directory Fields
Step 4 Save the new information. The updated information replaces the original information for the selected directory, and a "Directory successfully updated" message displays at the top of the page indicating that the selected directory has been updated.
Note Unless you change the Directory Path, no changes will appear in the Folder Attendant Administration page because most of the Directory fields are not displayed on the page.
Deleting Directories
Step 1 From the Toolbox, click Folder Attendant.
Step 2 Select the directory, and from the Directory drop-down, select Delete. See Figure 12-8. A delete confirmation message displays.
Figure 12-8 Select the Directory to be Deleted
Step 3 Select OK to delete the selected directory. The selected directory is removed from the list of directories on the Folder Attendant Administration page, and the directory watches assigned to that directory are also deleted. The "Directory successfully deleted" message displays at the top of the page.
Enabling or Disabling Directories
You can enable or disable directories as needed. When you enable a directory, it is online and Folder Attendant can watch it. If you disable a directory, it will be taken offline and Folder Attendant cannot watch it, but it is not deleted.
Step 1 From the Toolbox, click Folder Attendant.
Step 2 Select the directory, and from the Directory drop-down, select Enable or Disable. See Figure 12-9.
Note Only Enabled/Disabled or Online/Offline directories can be set to Enabled or Disabled.
Figure 12-9 Select the Directory to be Enabled or Disabled
Setting Up Watches
This section includes the following topics:
When is a File Completely Copied?
There are several ways Folder Attendant can determine when a file has been completely copied to a monitored watch folder and is ready for submission. Folder Attendant may detect the presence of a file before it has been completely copied (via FTP, etc.). Each directory can be configured to use one of the following methods to determine if the file is ready for submission:
- rename-to-self: attempt to rename the media or XML file to itself.
- rename-to-tmp: attempt to rename file to ([filename].tmp) and back to original file name.
- file-size-delay: wait [FileSizeDelay] seconds since last file size change.
Note File size must be > 0 bytes in order for the file to be considered completely copied. When copying files on some files systems (Avid Unity), the file size may be 0 bytes for a significant period of time. This method is the only method supported when monitoring FTP directories.
- file-last-modified-delay: wait [CopyCompleteDelay] in seconds since the last file modification date change.
- control-file: wait for control file named ([filename].ctl) to be added to directory along with media/xml file. Folder Attendant will not delete the control file. It must be added/deleted by a client process.
- exclusive open: attempt to open file exclusively.
Note Some of these methods may not work on a particular operating or file system.
Adding Watches
Step 1 From the Toolbox, click Folder Attendant.
Step 2 Highlight the Directory for which you want to add a watch, and from the Watch drop-down, click Add. See Figure 12-10.
Figure 12-10 Select the Watch to Add
Watch
Figure 12-11 shows the Add a Watch page. Table 12-4 describes the fields.
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Displays the list of file extensions that may be added to the watch. When a new/updated media or XML file matches one of these extensions, the file will automatically be submitted to the Cisco MXE 3500 using the parameters defined for the watch. To add file extensions, click Select to display the list. Select one or more extensions from this page to select the types of files to be included in the watch. |
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Check this box to specify that the watch is monitoring XML files, rather than media files. When submitting an XML file, all metadata, job profile, priority, etc. parameters are ignored. The XML is submitted 'as is' to the ECS with the watch's configured system settings. The configured extensions for determining if a file is an XML file are set in the Folder Attendant application configuration file. Current extensions are.rdf and.xml. |
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Enter a job title. If left blank, the title is set to the submitted file name with extension. Note: FA submits hundreds of jobs automatically when a file appears, so it does not make sense to set a default title for a Watch, which would result in all jobs in the status monitor having the same title. Now, the filename with extension displays, because the extension is a key identifier for a Watch. |
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Select a ratings profile. For some formats, this will be included in the metadata of the output media. |
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Enter the job author. This value defaults to the name of the currently logged in user. For some formats, this may be included in the metadata of the output media. |
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Enter the copyright information. This may be included in the metadata of the output media. This defaults to the copyright system setting. |
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Enter one or more keywords. For some formats, this may be included in the metadata of the output media. |
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Select the Cisco MXE 3500 Job Profile that will be assigned to this watch. The list of possible choices displayed is dependent on the job profiles that have been defined in other parts of the Cisco MXE 3500 system and stored in the job profile directory. This information is entered when you add a new watch. If this field is blank, a watch has not been set up for this directory. There are two ways to select the job profile for the watch being added. 1. 2. |
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Enter the job priority of the watch. In general, jobs with higher priority are scheduled before jobs with lower priority. Possible choices are 1-100, where 1 is the highest priority and 100 is the lowest priority. In general, assign higher priority for jobs that are more time-sensitive (for example, live jobs). |
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Check this box to delete a source file after it has been successfully processed. The file is deleted at the end of the Cisco MXE 3500 job. Source files are not deleted if the job fails. By default, this box is unchecked so that source files are not deleted. Note XML files are not deleted. This checkbox is disabled for XML watches. |
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Custom Metadata
This section contains a grid that displays all custom user metadata fields that have been defined for the system. You have the option to enter a value of the appropriate metadata type (type entry is enforced). When the watch is saved, the user metadata values are saved into the watch config file using the above XML tags (udm-item). This section is only visible when adding or editing watches (not directories). See Figure 12-12.
Figure 12-12 Custom Metadata Section
Override System Settings
The fields in this section allow you to override one or more settings for the selected watch. Check one or more boxes, and specify the location of the input or output files for the specified setting. See Figure 12-13.
Step 1 Check the box on the left side of each field.
Step 2 Enter a new path in the text box.
Figure 12-13 Override System Settings Section
Editing Watches
Use this procedure to edit an existing watch.
Step 1 From the Toolbox, click Folder Attendant.
Step 2 Select the watch that you want to edit, and from the Watch drop-down, click Edit. See Figure 12-14.
If you are not sure which watch you want to edit, select the directory and look at the parameters.
The Folder Attendant Administration page expands to display the fields related to setting up watches. This page has three sections: Directory, Watch, and Override System Settings, each of which contains a series of fields. Expand or shrink each section of the page to display the fields of interest by clicking on the plus (+) and minus (-) signs to the left of each section heading.
Figure 12-14 Select the Watch to be Edited
Step 3 Expand each section, and update the appropriate information in each section:
Step 4 Save to save the new information. The updated information replaces the original information for the selected watch.
Deleting Watches
Step 1 From the Toolbox, click Folder Attendant.
Step 2 Select a watch, and from the Watch drop-down, click Delete. See Figure 12-15. A delete confirmation message displays.
Figure 12-15 Select the Watch to be Deleted
Step 3 Select OK to delete the selected watch. The selected watch is deleted. If there was only one watch on this directory, the directory remains in the table, but the Profile, Priority, and # Files fields are cleared to show there are no watches on the directory. If there is more than one watch for this directory, the line containing the selected watch is removed from the table.
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