Automatic Instructions

The telescope is accessed remotely by making entries into the observatory database (see following Chapter). Since it is difficult to access directly via the mysql command two other methods have been developed:

• An XML based scripting language, that I have entitled RCTML.
• via a web based interface

Once entered in the database the requests must be scheduled and executed. The master daemon is the telco daemon. When first started it invokes the insgen scheduler that that determines which requests needs to be done and creates a schedule. The telco daemon then determines the first request on the schedule if it is to be observed immediately, it does so. If it is to be observed in the future, telco does some appropriate things and sleeps. When it wakes up it and when done regenerates the schedule. If there are no requests telco daemon will cause the observatory to hibernate in the appropriate manner.

If the database is modified while telco daemon is sleeping, it must be woken up using the command:

tin tickle