.TH QER 8 
.SH NAME
qer, runq \- queues management for spooled files
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B qer
.I root tag reply args
.br
.B runq
[
.B -ad
]
.I root cmd
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Qer
creates a control and a data file in a queue directory.
The control file contents consist of the
.IR tag ,
.IR reply ,
and
.I args
separated by spaces.
The data file contains the standard input to
.IR qer .
The files are created in the directory
.IR root / user ,
where
.I user
is the contents of
.BR /dev/user .
.IR Mktemp (2)
is used to create the actual names of the control and
data file.
.P
.I Runq
processes the files queued by
.IR qer .
Without the
.B -a
option,
.I runq
processes all requests in the directory
.IR root / user ,
where
.I user
is the contents of
.BR /dev/user .
With the
.B -a
it processes all requests.
Each request is processed by executing the command
.I cmd
with the contents of the control file as its arguments,
the contents of the data file as its standard input, and
standard error appended to the error file
.BR E.XXXXXX .
.P
The action taken by
.I runq
depends on the return status of
.IR cmd .
If
.I cmd
returns a null status, the processing is assumed successful and the
control, data, and error files are removed.
If
.I cmd
returns an error status containing the word
.LR Retry ,
the files are left to be reprocessed at a later time.
For any other status, an error message is mailed
to the requester and the files are removed.
.I Runq
uses the
.I reply
field in the control file as
a mail address to which to send an error notification.
The notification contains the contents of the control
file to identify the failed request.
.P
To avoid reprocessing files too often, the following algorithm is used:
a data file younger than one hour will not be processed if its
error file exists and was last modified within the preceding 10 minutes.
A data file older than one hour will not be processed if its error
file exists and was last modified within the preceding hour.
.P
The
.B -d
option causes debugging output on standard error
describing the progress through the queues.
.PP
.I Runq
is often called from
.IR cron (8)
by an entry such as
.IP
.EX
0,10,20,30,40,50 * * * * kremvax
        runq -a /mail/queue /mail/lib/remotemail
.EE
.LP
The entry must be a single line; it is folded here only so it fits on the page.
.SH FILES
.TF \fIroot\fP/\fIuser\fP/D.XXXXXX
.TP
.B \fIroot\fP/\fIuser\fP
queue directory for
.I user
.TP
.B \fIroot\fP/\fIuser\fP/D.XXXXXX
data file
.TP
.B \fIroot\fP/\fIuser\fP/C.XXXXXX
control file
.TP
.B \fIroot\fP/\fIuser\fP/E.XXXXXX
error file
.SH SOURCE
.B /sys/src/cmd/upas/q
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.IR mail (1)
