I have several FTP connections and I have to change the passwords every 4 weeks.
The passwords are created by a perl script using a command task to execute a perl script.
Every 4 weeks I receive a mail from VC to do this manualy looking at the genereted passwords.
I start manually several tasks which logs in into the FTP site and changes the password to a new one (with custom commands)
This works all great!

Problem is that I can not die... If the password is changed at the remote FTP site, the jobs using this FTP connection aren't working anymore. I have to manually go into the connection settings and change the password of the ftp connections to the corresponing output of the perl tasks.

My request is to have this done automatically, so like a specific task to set the password of a connection. If this is possible than it is possible for me to leave this world without having to know that some jobs will not work anymore over 4 weeks...

I thought about putting a variable into the password field, looking at the output of the perl task. The problem is what will happen if I change that specific job, the output is gone.. resulting in a not working FTP connection...


Does this make sense?

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Yes, it makes sense.

We will add "own" variables which you can set and use in places like this. We have not yet decided how these can be set automatically. I mean, let's say you have the password in a file and want to set a certain Variable - which would be the best generic approach.

One idea is that we have this Set Variable task. This task have two fields, one source value and one destination. Both can be Variables. So after reading your file you can use Output from that Task to copy into your own Variable - does that sound OK?

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Yes, own variables are great I think. You can use these to have for example counters and for strings. Counters is just what's pops up right now, but strings will be fine for my problem. The values of these variables should not be lost after a job modification or a server stop / start or even a system restart.
I use Perl to create a password, I save created ones encrypted to a file so I never have the same password. The only time you see the password is when you run the script in the output, so after that a task setting a variable with the output of the previous task sounds great. And if the passowords of a connection (FTP) looks at a variable, than my problem is solved.

Counters... hmmm you can have tasks comparing a variable whit something else. Greater/less/equal than, and than do something. In the past we used Opalis software and it had something like this as well. This software is just much better and the support is great, so bye bye Opalis... ✋

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Some additional info regarding own variables:

- These should be saved in a file in the settings folder, but they should be encrypted like the other info in the visualcron database files. If you save the variables into the database than after a server / service reboot they are still accessible.
- They must be backuped.
- The use conditions with own variables.

a Set Variable task sounds great.

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For counters (might be a different path) you can have increment / decrement / reset to default / comparison < > = combi's / tasks.
I will add a new feature request for this.

Hope to hear soon what you going to do with the own variables. [-o&lt;

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Erik, what you mentioned will be done:

- own file
- encrypted content
- will be able to be used in conditions
- included in backup/export/import
- we will add Increment/Decrement functions in Variables

What we discuss is if own variables can be of different data types. I am thinking of maybe 3 types. String, Integer and Double. The advantage with this is that comparisons can be more exact. On the other hand it may be to complex to handle for the user and gives nothing extra. Any thoughts on this? Is a string comparison enough of two values? I mean, if we want to compare two values with Greater than, should we then convert to integer or double first.

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To choose a datatype is a nice one.
A string and an integer are usefull. If you use doubles, the increment / decrement sould also accept theses values.
On the other hand, I think that string and integer are enough.

If I want to put a string into a integer variable will the value be 0, or does it gives me an error is another question.
With string comparison, does the greater than / less than functions check the characters a...z ?

With string comparison, you could also have: does var x contains y / the length of var x / ..??

[edit]And not to forget to use them in in the password field in the connection settings[/edit]

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