Note: "The Batch Mode Configuration Editor - Overview"
Under Unix, you can manage your search engine submissions
automatically by defining a cron job.
For this, you need to define the batch job's parameters prior to
setting up the cron job.
The Batch Mode Configuration Editor will assist you in
generating a configuration defining the selected search engines
to submit to, the e-mail addresses to deliver submission reports
to, and further template variables.
All these variables are saved in interactive mode in a parms file.
You can define an unlimited number of different configurations
for batch mode. They will all be stored in different parms
files.
For more details, please read this file.
Configuration parameters are explained here.

Field: "Cron configuration file name"
Define the name of the file containing the cron job's parameters
in the field marked "Cron configuration file name".
The script will automatically add the extension (suffix)
".cron.txt" to this defined file name.
Example:
             Entry = "cron.parm1"
Extended file name = "cron.parm1.cron.txt"

Field: "Number of URLs to submit"
In the field marked "Number of URLs to submit" you can limit the
number of URLs to be submitted during any given submission
cycle.
Example:
             Entry = "5"
This will limit the number of URLs submitted per batch job to 5.
It is recommended to limit submissions to 5 URLs per domain and
day as some search engines may ignore or even penalize larger
numbers of submission in the course of their spam prevention
measures.
If you configure your cron job to run several submissions times
per day, please take this into consideration when limiting the
number of overall submissions.
This number relates to "submissions per batch job run", not to
submissions per day!

Checkbox: "Submit unlimited number of URLs"
If you don't want to limit the number of submissions, check the
box marked "Submit unlimited number of URLs".
This will cause the script to submit all URLs listed in the
"Submission list file" in one single go.

Button: "Save Batch Mode Configuration"
You can store the configuration values by clicking button "Save
Batch Mode Configuration".
The parameters will be written into the file you specified under
"Cron configuration file name:".
The files containing your batch mode configuration parameters
will be stored in the directory "admin/admin_submissions/".
Once the files have been created and saved, they will be
displayed in the lower part of the template.
Listed to the right you will see the pertinent "Command line
strings".

Before starting a cron job, please test the batch mode first!
To do this, you will access your server by Telnet and enter the
required "Command line strings" in the command line. The easiest
and most comfortable way to do this is by cutting and pasting
the string, provided your Telnet client offers this
functionality.
If everything works out ok, you will receive the submission
report by e-mail, and the "Submission list file" will be
modified accordingly as outlined above.
Now you can proceed with installing the cron job.

Note: "Configuration of Cron Jobs - Overview"
Cron is a mechanism for planning and scheduling batch jobs.
The daemon "crond" is started automatically on system boot up.
It runs one check per minute to see if there are any jobs to
execute.

The list of jobs to execute is created by the program "crontab".

The following commands work from the assumption that you are
either logged in by Telnet or locally on your Unix system.
Entering the command "crontab -l" will display a list of current
entries. By default, only entries owned by the logged in User
will be displayed.

Existing lists can be removed/deleted with command "crontab -r".

To create a new list, it is recommended to read the entries from
a file using command "crontab filename".

The following examples will show you the format of this file.
The file itself is created with an ASCII text editor.

Example:
0 12 * * * /usr/www/htdocs/yourdomain/cgi-bin/submitpages-e.cgi cron_parm1.cron.txt

This entry consists of six parameters. The first five parameters
define the time schedule, whereas the sixth parameter contains
the command for executing the job.
In our example above, this command consists of:

- the full path and file name of the script
- an argument

This latter argument defines the batch configuration for
fantomas shadowMaker™.

This command can be transferred by "cut and paste" from the
list of "Command line strings" displayed in the lower section of
the "BATCH MODE CONFIGURATION EDITOR" of the GUI.

Parameters defining the time schedule are:

minute(0-59) hour(0-23) day of month(1-31) month(1-12) day of week(0-6) 0 = Sun

Hence, the above sample entries: 0 12 * * *
can be translated as:

If Minute = 0  and Hour = 12, the script will be executed.

Because the last three scheduling parms are defined by wildcard
character "", the job will be executed every day.

Scheduling Week Days
--------------------
If you wish to run the script on Mondays only, the following
entry will do the trick:

0 12 * * 1 /usr/www/htdocs/yourdomain/cgi-bin/submitpages-e.cgi cron_parm1.cron.txt

Scheduling Turn of Month
------------------------
You can schedule the turn of the month in this manner:

0 0 1 * * /usr/www/htdocs/yourdomain/cgi-bin/submitpages-e.cgi cron_parm1.cron.txt

Configurations for Multiple Domains
-----------------------------------
If you are maintaining multiple domains, you can create a
separate job for each domain.

E.g. you may create a file named "crontabfilename.txt" and enter
the following command lines:

0 12 * * * /usr/www/htdocs/yourdomain/cgi-bin/submitpages-e.cgi domain1.cron.txt
0 14 * * * /usr/www/htdocs/yourdomain/cgi-bin/submitpages-e.cgi domain2.cron.txt
0 16 * * * /usr/www/htdocs/yourdomain/cgi-bin/submitpages-e.cgi domain3.cron.txt

The respective argument "domain1.cron.txt" defines the file
containing the pertinent domain's batch configuration.

Next, the command "crontab crontabfilename.txt" will transmit
this file to crontab.

Important
If you have crontab configured for prior jobs already, you must
include them in the new file "crontabfilename.txt" (example), as
the command "crontab crontabfilename.txt" will override all
previous cron jobs owned by the specific user calling crontab.
For further explanations under Unix, you can select from the
following commands:
man crontab
man 5 crontab
man cron