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
   ([email protected]) 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.

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