The RHTF Web-Authoring System

RHTF is both a file format (it stands for Readable HyperText Format) and a set of tools running under Linux that provide an easy-to-maintain, automatic system for publishing pages on the Internet.

The bweb-ctl.hid File

bweb-ctl.hid contains lines that specify and control each translation and transfer that takes place.

Here is a sample bweb-ctl.hid:


# bweb-ctl.hid for the mrob.com site src/mrob 1 webgr2 web/mrob web/mrob 1 postw2 myisp_ftp


Mirroring

Publishing the same files or set of files in multiple places is sometimes called mirroring. If you want to publish your files on multiple servers, you can accomplish it easily by putting extra postw2 lines in bweb-ctl.hid. An example of that is shown here:


# bweb-ctl.hid for the mrob.com with mirror # one translation src/mrob 1 webgr2 web/mrob # two transfers web/mrob 1 postw2 myisp_ftp web/mrob 2 postw2 mirror1


Notice that the two postw2 lines have the same source directory (web/mrob) and command (postw2) but a different ID number. This different ID number is important: It makes sure that separate index files will be used to keep track of the FTP transfers that have been performed to the two servers.

.per files

To create programs that automatically run at a periodic interval in your RHTF source directories, you use .per files. per stands for "periodic", and any file that ends in .per will be executed once per day by bwebd.

.per files also get run whenever bwebd detects that they have changed.

When a .per file is run, the current working directory is set to the directory that the .per file is in.

The bweb-ftp.hid File

The bweb-ftp.hid file is used only by postw2. It tells postw2 how to connect to the FTP server for each server that is referred to by an entry in column 4 of the bweb-ctl.hid file.

Here is a sample bweb-ftp.hid:


# bweb-ftp.hid for the mrob.com site myisp_ftp ftp.myisp.com mrob secretpassword . mirror1 ftp.mirrors.isp2.net mrob_623 password2 pub


Major but Infrequent Operations

To change the name of a source RHTF directory or a cache HTML directory, perform these two steps:

  • Rename the directory
  • Edit the corresponding line(s) in bweb-ctl.hid.


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