The Scan Scheduler Editor is the place where you will schedule scans to run on background without noticing. You may save the scan output to a file or send it to one or more emails. It is possible to enable and disable the schedule, it can also be configured to auto-add scan results to the Network Inventory by toggling the Add to the Inventory option.
To set up a new scan schedule you just need to define a name for the schedule, a schedule profile and a command for it. The other options are optional, but you may want to use them too.
The following table tells about all the fields you will find in the Scan Scheduler Editor.
Field Meaning Schema name Defines an unique name for the Scan Schedule that is being created, you may name it like “network scan”, “local scan”, etc. Note that if you choose to add this schedule to the Inventory, the Inventory’s name will be the Schema name. Scan Profile These profiles are the profiles you created in UMIT, they define scan options. Command Command is the scan command that will be used in this schedule. Scheduling Profile You need to choose one of the available Scheduling Profiles. This defines when the schema command will be executed. Clicking on “Edit Profiles” will open the Scheduling Profiles Editor. Save outputs to If you choose to save output, you will need to specify an output directory. A directory is required because a schedule is likely to be executed several times, so the file output is a combination of directory output, schema name and number of outputs for that schema. Send output to email If you choose to send output to a email, you will need to specify one or more recipients. Example: me@example.com or me@example.com,her@example.com. You also need to choose one of the available SMTP Schemas, if there is no SMTP Schema created yet you will need to open “SMTP Setup” window and create one so you can use it here. Add to the Inventory If you toggle on this option, the scan output will be added to the Network Inventory, according to the previous explanation given on “Schema Name”. Enabled If you toggle on “Enabled”, this schema will run on the scheduled time if the Scheduler is running. Otherwise, it will just exist but will never be executed (you may come back later and Enable it).
After filling all the required fields, you may click on “Apply”. If no error dialog appears, your new Scan Schedule was created sucessfully. Clicking on “OK” will do the same, but will close “Scan Scheduler Editor” afterwards. Clicking on “Close” will discard the schema you were creating and will close the window.
To create a new scheduling profile you need to set an unique name for it, and a cron time format. UMIT comes with some scheduling profiles for those that aren’t familiar with cron.
After filling all the required fields, you may click on “Apply”. If no error dialog appears, your new Scheduling Profile was created sucessfully. Clicking on “OK” will do the same, but will close “Scheduling Profiles Editor” afterwards. Clicking on “Close” will discard the profile you were creating and will close the window.
See also
When you see a “red ball” in UMIT interface, it means the Scheduler is stopped. Clicking on it will start the Scheduler, or will display a Warning telling some advice, or an error message.
To start the Scheduler as root you have some options, some will be described here. First option, and not the best, would be running UMIT as root, so when you start the Scheduler it will be started as root.
If you run umit as root, it will use root’s config files! [*]
The second option is “harder” to do, but better. You need to open a terminal, and use sudo or any other tool that can preserve environment. The command will be like this:
sudo umit_scheduler.py start
And the Scheduler will start.
To stop it later, you may do:
sudo umit_scheduler.py stop
umit_scheduler.py is installed in the same directory as umit, so it should be on your path already.
[*] | UMIT keeps config files for each user that runs it. If you always use it as a user called ‘john’, for example, your config files will be inside, for example, /home/john/.umit. So, when you run it as root, it uses /root/.umit, and ‘john’ doesn’t see the changes in root files, neither root sees changes in john’s files (usually). |
If you want to start the Scheduler with root and tell it to use someone else UMIT config files, you may do so. The final command will be like this:
umit_scheduler.py start /home/john/.umit
umit_scheduler.py stop /home/john/.umit
If you want to start Scheduler at system startup, you will have to write that path you especified (/home/john/.umit) inside umit_scheduler.py in a var called CONFIG_DIR.
When you see a “green ball” in UMIT interface, it means the Scheduler is running. Clicking on it will stop Scheduler, except in the case you do not have permission to stop it, then a Warning will be shown. If you are on Windows, the possible cause for not being able to stop the Scheduler is because you did not run UMIT as administrator.