User Guide

32 Chapter 2: Basic ColdFusion MX Administration
Scheduled Tasks page
You use the Scheduled Tasks page to schedule the execution of local and remote web pages and to
generate static HTML pages. The scheduling facility is useful for applications that do not require
user interactions or customized output. ColdFusion developers use this facility to schedule daily
sales reports, corporate directories, statistical reports, and so on.
Information that is read more often than written is a good candidate for scheduled tasks. Instead
of executing a query to a database every time the page is requested, ColdFusion MX renders the
static page with information generated by the scheduled event. Response time is faster because no
database transaction takes place.
You can run scheduled tasks once; on a specified date; or at a specified time, daily, weekly, or
monthly. You can run a scheduled task daily, at a specified interval, or between specified dates.
The Schedule Task page lets you create, edit, and delete scheduled tasks. For more information,
see the online Help.
System Probes page
System probes help you evaluate the status of your ColdFusion applications. Like scheduled tasks,
they access a URL at a specified interval, but they can also check for the presence or absence of a
string in the URL. If the URL contents are unexpected, or if an error occurred while accessing the
URL, the probe can send an e-mail alert to the address specified in the System Probes page. The
probe can also execute a script to perform a recovery action, such as restarting the server. All probe
actions are logged in logs/probes.log. The System Probes page also displays the status of each
probe.
You use the buttons in the Actions column in the System Probes table to perform the following
actions:
Because probes run as scheduled ColdFusion tasks, they will not run if the ColdFusion MX server
on which they are hosted crashes, or if the host web server crashes or otherwise does not respond.
car.log Records errors associated with Site Archive and Restore operations.
mail.log Records errors generated by an SMTP mail server.
mailsent.log Records messages sent by ColdFusion MX.
flash.log Records entries for Flash Remoting.
Action Description
Edit Lets you edit the probe.
Run Runs the probe immediately, even if it was previously disabled.
Enable/
Disable
Starts and stops the probe from automatically executing at its specified interval.
Delete Deletes the probe.
Log Description