Question

Write a script to notify via email

Asked by: smary

I have a FTP site and folder for one of the user. He'll be uploading some files in that folders regularly via FTP. Is there a way I can be notified everytime there is some activity in that folder ? I can think of a way of writing a BATCH script, but dont know how to write a script a windows.

Does someone have such a script ? Or any other ideas or suggestions are welcome.
I'm not a windows person so I'd appreciate a detailed explanation.

Thanks,
smary

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2009-10-19 at 10:31:26ID24824360
Topics

Windows Batch Scripting

,

Windows 2003 Server

,

Automation

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
4

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. notifying the user
    Hi, my user requirment is whenever our customer post a file in the ftp server. They have to be notified. Is there anyway to do this. I am thinking in a way that whenever directory attributes is changed, the user has to nofified. pls help me how to do this task.. Thanks.
  2. Notify in groupshield
    Is it possible don't notify any virus alert to my recipient?. I have groupshield 5 with sp1 on Exchange 2000. Now when i replace an item i put a file with notification. I don't want this notification for recipients but only for administrator. Thanx
  3. a message to notify user when specific is offline
    The DB server is SQL server 2000. I want to setup a message to notify user when specific is offline. How to do that?

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: leewPosted on 2009-10-19 at 10:46:32ID: 25607318

I would suggest using the Windows Task Scheduler to run a batch file periodically (every 5 minutes - or every hour - or whatever interval you'd like)

Some notes on the attached script -

bmail is a command line mailer available from here - follow the syntax to have it email who and what you want.
http://www.beyondlogic.org/solutions/cmdlinemail/cmdlinemail.htm

In addition, you will need to create a text file, "n.txt" using the following procedure (this is vital or compare will prompt you and not move on)

from the Windows command prompt, type the following sequence (keystrokes in brackets - [])

copy con c:\n.txt[enter/return]
N[enter/return]
[F6]

This should create a file with "N" and a carriage return as the value.

The way the script works -
Creates a file "current.txt" which is a listing of the contents of the FTP site.
Next time the script is run, it renames current.txt to old, creates a new current.txt and compares the two.  If the old one and the new one are different, compare sets the errorlevel to 1 (something other than zero).  Then we check the value of errorlevel - if it's not zero, we run the e-mail command.

c:
cd\
if exist c:\current.txt (
   ren current.txt old.txt
   dir "x:\path to\uploaded files">c:\Current.txt
   comp current.txt old.txt<c:\n.txt
)
if "%errorlevel%" NEQ "0" (
   bmail <insert command line options here>
)
                                              
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
10:

Select allOpen in new window

 

by: smaryPosted on 2009-10-19 at 12:34:42ID: 25608228

Thanks for your feedback leew

I'm trying to understand and test it on my laptop before I put it on production server.

When I open a command prompt and type

C:\>copy con c:\n.txt[enter/return]

I get the following error:

The syntax of the command is incorrect.

What am I doing wrong ?


Thanks again for your prompt reply

Regards,
Smary

 

by: Shift-3Posted on 2009-10-19 at 14:42:54ID: 25609308

This can be done without any third-party software.

Paste the script below into a text file with a .vbs extension.  Customize the value of the strComputer variable on line 1 with the name of the computer hosting the folder to be monitored (or leave it as "." if running it locally on that server).  Customize the value of the strFolder variable on line 2 with the local path of the folder.  Customize the values of the email variables on lines 4-8 as desired.

Running the script will continuously monitor the folder and send an email whenever a new file is created.  Note that monitoring folders this way may cause a performance hit.  Test the script carefully before running it on a production system.

For an explanation of the coding, see these articles:
http://blogs.technet.com/heyscriptingguy/archive/2007/02/14/how-can-i-automatically-open-new-files-added-to-a-folder.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/resources/qanda/nov04/hey1129.mspx

strComputer = "."
strFolder = "c:\files"
 
strEmailFrom = "do.not.reply@example.com"
strEmailTo = "user@example.com"
strEmailSubject = "new file in folder"
strEmailBody = "The following file was created in " & strFolder & ":"
strSMTP = "smtpserver.example.com"
 
On Error Resume Next
 
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
 
Set colMonitoredEvents = objWMIService.ExecNotificationQuery _
    ("SELECT * FROM __InstanceCreationEvent WITHIN 10 WHERE " _
    & "Targetinstance ISA 'CIM_DirectoryContainsFile' and " _
    & "TargetInstance.GroupComponent= " _
    & "'Win32_Directory.Name=" & Chr(34) & _
    Replace(strFolder, "\", "\\\\") & Chr(34) & "'")
 
Do
    Set objLatestEvent = colMonitoredEvents.NextEvent
    strNewFile = objLatestEvent.TargetInstance.PartComponent
    arrNewFile = Split(strNewFile, "=")
    strFileName = arrNewFile(1)
    strFileName = Replace(strFileName, "\\", "\")
    strFileName = Replace(strFileName, Chr(34), "")
    
    Set objEmail = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
    objEmail.From = strEmailFrom
    objEmail.To = strEmailTo
    objEmail.Subject = strEmailSubject
    objEmail.Textbody = strEmailBody & vbCrLf & strFileName
    objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Item _
        ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusing") = 2
    objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Item _
        ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserver") = strSMTP
    objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Item _
        ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserverport") = 25
    objEmail.Configuration.Fields.Update
    objEmail.Send
Loop

                                              
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
10:
11:
12:
13:
14:
15:
16:
17:
18:
19:
20:
21:
22:
23:
24:
25:
26:
27:
28:
29:
30:
31:
32:
33:
34:
35:
36:
37:
38:
39:
40:
41:
42:

Select allOpen in new window

 

by: leewPosted on 2009-10-19 at 22:52:36ID: 25611304

Post a screen shot of what you are doing - and remember what I said - (keystrokes in brackets - [])

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...