5
Syndication Server Administration

This chapter provides a brief overview of the OSSAdmin utility used for Syndication Server administration tasks.

The features of the OSSAdmin utility are categorized into four sections (see Table 5-1), which represents the top-level menu.

Command Name	Description
Sys (S): System Monitor	Manages the Syndication Server runtime system (monitoring and tuning). See Section 5.1.
Sbm (B): Subscriber management	Manages the subscriber profile. See Section 5.2.
Afm (A): Affiliate Management	Manages the affiliate or content provider accounts. See Section 5.3.
Sum (U): Subscription management	Manages subscriptions. See Section 5.4.

Section 5.1 through Section 5.4 describe the operations available for each specific set of administrative tasks.

5.1 Syndication Server Runtime System Administration

Table 5-2 describes the Syndication Server runtime system administration operations.

Command Name	Description
List (L): List all the schedulers	Gets the list of scheduler IDs for the current running system. This operation helps the administrator monitor the resource usage of the Syndication Server system.
Show (S): Show the details for the scheduler	Retrieves the details for a scheduler with a given scheduler ID. This operation is used for the administrator to keep track of which scheduler is doing what task.
Cancel (C): Cancel a scheduler	Cancels a scheduler and releases its resources. This operation is used in a severe situation in which a scheduler cannot work properly and must be shut down.

Table 5-3 describes the subscriber profile management operations.

Command Name	Description
Add (A): Add a new subscriber	Registers a new subscriber. The administrator creates a new account for the subscriber. It does not grant content provider access to the subscriber.
Show (S): Show all subscriber IDs	Gets the list of subscriber IDs. This operation is used for the administrator to browse the current set of registered subscribers.
Profile (P): Get profile for a subscriber	Retrieves account information for a given subscriber.
List (L): List all content providers accessible to a subscriber	Gets the list of accessible content providers for a given subscriber.
Grant (G): Grant access to a subscriber for a content provider	Grants access to the subscriber for a given content provider. This operation allows the subscriber to access the specified content provider and retrieve catalog information from it.
Revoke (R): Revoke access to a content provider	Revokes access to a content provider by a subscriber.
Cancel (C): Cancel a subscriber	Unregisters a given subscriber. This operation removes all of its related subscriptions as well as all the system resources allocated to those subscriptions at runtime.

Table 5-4 describes the affiliate or content provider profile management operations.

Command Name	Description
Add (A): Add a new content provider	Registers a new content provider.
List (L): List all content providers	Gets the list of content provider IDs. This operation is used for browse purposes.
Profile (P): Get profile for the content provider	Retrieves the profile for the given content provider.
Cancel (C): Cancel a content provider	Unregisters a given content provider. All of its associated subscriptions are removed. A notification is sent to each relevant subscriber.

Table 5-5 describes the subscription management operations.

Command Name	Description
List (L): List all existing subscriptions	Gets the list of established subscription IDs.
Info (I): Get information for a subscription	Retrieves the details for a specified subscription.
Cancel (C): Cancel a subscription	Removes a given subscription. All of its associated system resources, such as schedulers, are also released.