Administration Guide : Command-line manual pages

PDFSYNC(8) manual page

Name

pdfsync - stores previews of PDF pages into the Xinet WebNative Venture database.

Synopsis

pdfsync [ -D | -d dblev ] [ -fid#### ] [ -volflags#### ] [ filepath ]

Description

The pdfsync program is responsible for storing previews of pages -- and placed-image information -- from PDF files into the Xinet WebNative Venture database. The previews are used by WebNative's mview CGI to show the PDF and its placed images in a browser. Xinet FullPress and WebNative programs write events to webdblog files, located in the FullPress administrative directory. The dblogd(8) daemon reads the webdblog files and when it gets notification of a new or modified PDF file, and if storing multi-page previews is enabled for the volume containing the PDF, webdblog sends a message to the fpod (8) daemon for processing. Fpod then calls pdfsync to process one PDF file at a time. See the fpod.conf file for the calling sequence fpod uses for pdfsync.

Previews are generated using FullPress' PostScript/PDF interpreter, and parameters controling the size and type of preview are taken from the fpovolopts(4) entry for the volume. If it takes longer than 10 minutes to make any single preview, that page preview is skipped. Only the previews configured to be stored for the Venture volume (i.e. `large' and/or `small') are made.

Pdfsync writes log messages about the files it processes to stdout, which is usually redirected to the fpod_vlog file in the FullPress administrative directory. If debugging is enabled, those messages go to stderr, which is also usually redirected to fpod_vlog. The exit status from pdfsync will be zero on success or if it cannot resolve a given FileID to an actual file stored in the Venture database. All other error conditions will result in an exit status of 1 (which tells fpod to retry the file).

Normally, unresolvable references to placed images in a PDF are ignored. If the localhostnames text file exists in venture's var directory, it contains a list of names (one per line) that will be considered to imply local files. This will usually be the server's hostname and any local portal servers that tie to it. References in Interactive PDFs to images on hosts not in this list will be added to the Venture database tagged with the host name.

Command Options

The flags are defined as follows:
-d dblev
Turns on debugging at a certain level, represented by dblev (in hex).
-D
Turns on full debugging.
-fidFileId
Supplies the WebNative Venture file identification number FileId (in decimal) for the file to be processed. Specify either a FileId or a filepath - but not both - to sync a PDF.
-volflagsflags
Optional volume information flags (also in decimal). Normally, these flags are retrieved from the Venture database.
filepath
If syncing a file `by hand,' its full path may be used instead of the FileID. If pdfsync cannot resolve the Venture File ID from the path, it will exit with a non-zero value.

Files

/usr/etc/venture/bin/pdfsync
/usr/etc/venture/var/fpod.conf
/usr/etc/venture/var/localhostnames
/var/adm/appletalk/fpod_vlog