KIU watches certain applications and monitors if they are still running. If an application no longer runs because it "unexpectedly quit" or because the user quit it, KIU will attempt to relaunch this application (and open certain documents) or restart the computer. This will ensure that your application is always running and available. This is especially important for all kinds of server applications.
KIU can also restart your Mac at certain scheduled moments in time. This feature can for example be used to prevent memory fragmentation in your server.
KIU can also be told to keep a selected application in front of all other applications.
KIU can also be used to perform remote management of your Mac using a webbrowser. KIU has a tiny "embedded" webserver that allows you to remotely:
• restart/shutdown the Mac
• view, kill or restart running processes
• launch applications and execute Applescripts
• get some info about the system.
Keep It Up requires System 7. It is compatible with System 8.5. Open Transport TCP/IP is required for the remote management features.
B. What does Keep It Up NOT do ?
KIU will not restart the system in case of a "System Error". When this happens, you will get a "bomb" and the entire system comes to a halt. To cure this, you should run "Autoboot". Autoboot is another utility written by yours truly, which restarts a mac in case of a System Error or freeze up, and I recommend running it alongside with KIU.
KIU only acts on "application errors". These kinds of errors don't halt the entire system, but only one application and you get the infamous "The Application xxx has unexpectedly quit because an error of type ZZ occurred" message.
Keep It Up and AutoBoot together will ensure maximal availability of you computer.
C. How to use Keep It Up.
Configuring KIU is really simple. If you launch KIU for the first time, it will create a folder called "KIU StartUp Items" in the System's Preferences folder. There's also a "KIU WebLaunch Items" folder, which is described in the remote management section below.
If you put an alias of an application in the "KIU StartUp Items" folder, or one or more aliases of documents belonging to the application, KIU will "watch" this application ("watched application") and relaunch it if it (unexpectedly) quits, re-opening the documents. KIU can check up to 75 aliases. Don't put both an alias to an application and aliases to documents of that application in the KIU Items.
If the name of an alias in the KIU folder ends with a "1" (e.g. myserverapp.1), this application will be kept in front of all other applications. This improves the performance of the selected application.
After you put an alias in the "KIU StartUp Items", you need to quit and relaunch Keep It Up, in order for KIU to notice the changes in the folder.
Tip: make an alias of the ""KIU StartUp Items" and put it somewhere accessible (e.g.) in the same folder as KIU. This allows you to easily manage the aliases .
All you still have to do, is put an alias of KIU in the System's "Startup Items" folder. At startup, KIU will be launched, and KIU will launch the "watched applications", opening the selected documents. Do not put an alias to an application in both the "KIU StartUp Items" and the System's "StartUp Items", because to function most efficiently, KIU must be allowed to launch the applications.
While KIU is running, it will put up a small window:
This window is only there because the Mac OS likes to quit applications that have no windows open in case of memory shortage. This little window prevents Keep It Up from being quit.
D. Keep It Up preferences
The preferences dialog offers several options:
General Options
KIU is often used for Macs which are accessible by the general public to ensure that certain applications (e.g. a demo, kiosks, ..) keep running even if the user quits them. By using a password, you can prevent KIU itself from being quit. If you enable "Ask password on quit", KIU will refuse to quit unless a correct password is supplied. On restart/shutdown, this password is not needed.
You can also protect the preferences dialog using the same password.
Delay Options
If one of the "watched applications" is no longer running, because it "unexpectedly quit" or because the user quit it, KIU will attempt to relaunch this application and open any documents that were in the "KIU StartUp Items" folder.
As a consequence, when you're sitting at your computer, you would never be able to quit such an app, because it would be relaunched immediately. To avoid this, KIU will not become active until a certain time has elapsed in which the user performed no keyboard/mouse interaction. This time is user configurable.
When KIU is launched, you can also delay the launch of the items in de KIU StartUp Items, which can be useful if an application depends on some other software that needs lots of time to initialize. This delay is also configurable.
Restart Options
If KIU does not succeed to relaunch the app due to an error or if the number of relaunches exceeds a certain number, it will restart the entire system. Before KIU restarts the computer, it will warn you that a restart is pending (notification with a voice alert). You can now still quit KIU to prevent the restart.
Warning: if KIU restarts the computer, any unsaved work will be lost forever.
The options are:
"Restart this Mac": if you uncheck this, KIU will simply exit instead of restarting the computer. You should uncheck this option if you only want KIU to attempt relaunches.
"Number of Launches": if this number is exceeded, the computer will be restarted. Don't set this number too high, because a high number of relaunches indicates the system needs a restart. Only relaunches are counted (not the initial launch of the applications). If set to zero, KIU will never attempt to relaunch an app, but will always restart the computer if an application quits.
"Delay before restart": the computer will wait for this period before it actually restarts the computer, allowing for user intervention
E. Keep It Up Remote Management
KIU has a tiny "embedded" webserver that allows you to remotely manage your Mac.
You can enable this webserver in the preferences dialog. You will be asked to enter a password, if you had not done so already. You can also choose the port number on which the webserver runs (>1023). This way you can prevent any conflict with a real webserver or other network software.
To remotely manage your Mac: from any computer, point a browser to your Mac using the portnumber you chose.
e.g.: http://mymac.mydomain.com:2666
or
http://143.14.78.22:2666
(If you don't know the URL for your Mac, consult the KIU FAQ file)
You must enter a username (always "kiu") and the password you chose.
You can now perform several tasks:
• General System Info: get some statistics such as the remote system's uptime, free harddisk space, and the system load (>120 = heavily loaded system).
• Shutdown & Restart: remotely shutdown or restart your Mac.
The shutdown and restart commands come in "normal" and "Quick&Dirty" versions. The normal version work as if somebody selects shutdown/restart from the finder. The "Quick&Dirty" versions of these commands force a restart/shutdown and do not bother to close open applications.
Sometimes your Mac will put up a dialog during the shutdown/restart. To avoid this situation, you should install Okey Dokey (see KIU FAQ). Unfortunately, Okey Dokey doesn't work for some dialogs, so in these cases you need the Q&D commands. These can cause data loss, although to minimize this risk, they do flush the disk cache. You may want to manually quit some applications using the process commands below, before you use the Q&D shutdown/restart commands.
• Processes: a process is another word for a program running on your Mac. You can view all running processes, and kill (=quit) or restart (=quit+launch again) them. The process table shows all processes, even the ones that are normally not visible.
Note 1: it is possible that a program puts up a dialog when you try to kill or restart it. This prevents the completion of your remote command. To avoid this situation, use Okey Dokey (see KIU FAQ).
Note 2: if you kill a process, and this process is on the list of "watched applications", KIU will relaunch the application.
• Launch Applications: you can remotely launch applications or run an AppleScript. To make an application available for remote launch, you must first make an alias to the applescript/application and copy it to the "KIU Weblaunch Items" folder in the preferences folder. Applescripts must be saved as "application", option "never show startup screen".
The possibility to remotely run an Applescript allows you to perform any remote management task that you can write an Applescript for.
F. Log File
KIU always keeps a log file of all relaunches, restarts, errors, etc... You will find this "Keep It Up log" in the System Folder. You can view this log file by selecting "Open Log File" from the file menu. This will launch TeachText and open the log file, so you must have TeachText (or localised equivalent for non-English systems) on your harddisk.
If you have any trouble with KIU, always check the log file for errors.
G. Schedule
When you select "Schedule" from the File menu, you can specify 2 scheduling options:
First of all you can set KIU to disable itself during 2 periods of the day. Check the appropriate checkbox to activate this option. Set the periods by clicking on the 'begin' and 'end' time displays (00:00 in the boxes). You can reset a period by setting the begin time equal to the end time
Secondary, you can also tell KIU to restart the computer on a regular time basis. You may have all kinds of reasons to do this, e.g. because sometimes your server becomes too slow if it isn't restarted from time to time. Check the appropriate checkbox to activate this option. Set the days of the week on which you want the computer to be restarted and click on the "at 00:00 " time display to set the correct hour.
KIU can restart the computer in two ways. The first way ('clean restart' checked) is as if you selected 'Restart' in the finder 'special' menu. The applications will be quit one by one. Unfortunately, if one application puts up some dialog, the restart will be stopped. The second way ('clean restart' unchecked) forces a restart without closing applications. The Mac will be restarted for sure, but data may be lost.
Note: the restart will not happen if:
* the computer is not "idle" at the time of restart because somebody is using the Mac.
* other applications do not give KIU processing time at restart time.
F. Shareware
This software is shareware. This is not another term for free software, as many people seem to think. Shareware software must be paid, just like ordinary commercial software. The difference is that a shareware author uses cheap distribution channels to keep costs down and this system also allows you to evaluate the software before you decide to purchase it.
You may evaluate KIU for a reasonable amount of time. You will be regularly reminded to pay your shareware fee by a notification. This message, when not dismissed, will remove itself after 1 minute to allow foreground processing to continue. The message will also be logged.
After you pay your fee, you will receive a serial number, which you must use to register your copy. The messages will disappear.
Distribution:
You can distribute this software by giving it away to friend, upload it to a BBS or online services like Compuserve or AOL, or send it to any ftp site. Basically you can distribute it any way you like, as long as you don't ask any money for it, other than a small charge related to distribution costs (cost of a disk, postage or download fee) and keep it together with this unmodified document in the original compressed archive this product came in.
You may not sell this product or bundle it with any other products (commercial or other) without explicit written permission by the author of this software.
You may not modify Keep It Up or this document in any way nor distribute Keep It Up without this document or the other files and applications that came with it.
Price:
The fee is U.S. $22 for one copy; $17/copy if you buy more than one copy.. Mind you: you don't pay for the number of users, but for the number of Macs you run KIU on.
A site license is U.S. $220.
You will receive a personal registration number that will reflect the number of copies you paid for .
Payment:
All shareware payments are handled by Kagi. Look in the Registration folder for details on how to register.
Contact info:
e-mail: karlp@macbel.be or karl@kagi.com
Check the AutoBoot/KIU web pages if you want info on the latest release, download sites, tips, ...
http://www.vl-brabant.be/mac
If you want to send me a bug report, be sure to state Macintosh model, system version, used inits (system extensions) and cdevs (control panels). Describe the problem as clearly as you can: what happens ? Which circumstances ? Can you eliminate the problem by turning off some extensions ?
LIMITED WARRANTY AND LIABILITY:
THIS SOFTWARE COMES 'AS IS'. I CAN NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE OR LOSS OF DATA CAUSED BY THIS PRODUCT DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, WHATEVER THE NATURE OF THE DAMAGE. I DO NOT GUARANTEE THAT KEEP IT UP WILL IN PERFORM AS DESCRIBED IN THIS MANUAL.
