README for LinkController 0.033

    LinkController is a package which is designed to allow the checking of
    links in sophisticated ways. If you have ever noticed that link checkers
    spend more time sending you to sites which just happen to be down for
    the day due to maintenance problems than to real broken links, this
    should be for you.

    It was written for and helps in the maintenance of the Scottish Climbing
    Archive (the section on "/scotclimb.org.uk" in the http: manpage ) but
    has deliberately gone a bit beyond the needs of a normal web page
    maintenance script.

WHERE TO START

    Get LinkController installed. The file INSTALL should help.

    Read the reference manual (in the docs directory as link-controller.* or
    in docs/HTML in HTML format).

    Documentation is available online at
    http://scotclimb.org.uk/software/linkcont/link-controller-homepage.html

    Try the configuration commands; default-install if you are a system
    administrator or configure-link-control if you are not.

    Try each of the commands (`test-link' `link-report' etc.). Use the
    `--help' option to the commands to find out how they work. Use the
    `--not-perfect' option to link-report to get early output.

FEATURES

    *   Link checking

        Link controller includes tools for extracting links from web pages
        and then testing them.

    *   rapid link repair

        LinkController includes systems for repairing all files which need
        repaired based on databases it builds up which.

    *   network efficient

        LinkController does requests at a very slow (and configurable) rate
        over time and mostly uses HEAD requests to verify documents exist.

    *   works in network low usage time

        under configuration from your own crontab.

    *   obeys robot exclusion rules

        in configurable ways.

    *   has features for intranet usage

        Use of authentication tokens. Fast checking of particular domains.

    *   source code included and protected under the GPL

        Guaranteed possibility to maintain the software, even if I go bust.

HOW IT WORKS

    LinkController normally works by checking all of your links to a
    database at times triggered from cron (you should choose low usage
    times). After a few days, it will have built up a list of those links
    which are really broken and you can then examine them and do what
    repairs and changes are needed. The time delay saves work in examining
    links which aren't really broken.

    Once you have the database built, you can selectively report problems
    with your links across all of your pages and repair broken ones rapidly,
    either using LinkControllers direct substitution system, or by directly
    opening the page up in your favorite editor (direct Emacs support is
    provided).

    LinkController includes a system for rapidly changing links through your
    HTML pages. To do this it uses the database that it has already built up
    and only edits those files which need to be edited. This can save much
    time if you have many pages to look after.

    Link controller is based over the World Wide Web capabilities provided
    by LibWWW-Perl and as such should be easy to modify and extend. It
    should also be reliable and safe to use.

GPL Protection

    Link Controller is available under the GNU Public License to protect
    your rights as a user of the software.

    That the source code is under the GPL means that your right to modify it
    is protected and that you can be sure that if you come across a version
    of this software in use somewhere, and have to do maintenance on it, you
    will at least have access to the source code. That means that even if
    you can't fix it yourself, you can hire someone who can. The Perl
    consultants list will be a good place to start (go to
    <http://www.perl.org/> ).

    Link controller is user supported software, and no warantee is provided,
    no support is guaranteed. Bugs and patches are gratefully accepted
    (link-controller@scotclimb.org.uk) no response is guaranteed, but I'll
    do my best.

    See the file INSTALL included in the distribution for information on how
    to install it.

    You can download LinkController from

            http://scotclimb.org.uk/software/linkcont/

    in various formats or

            http://www.cpan.org/

    via the Perl modules system

Thanks

    Thanks must go to various people and institutions which provided access
    or help.

    *   Esoterica Internet Portugal

    *   IPPT PAN Institute in Poland and in particular

    *   Piotr Pogorzelszi there

    *   The Tardis Project at the University of Edinburgh CS Department

    Please see the LinkController user guide included with the distribution.