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The above installation steps are sufficient to set up a test server to play around with, but there are a few other steps and options you should probably consider before deploying a DSpace production site.

'cron'

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jobs / scheduled tasks

A few DSpace features require that a script is run regularly (via cron, or similar):

• the e-mail subscription feature that alerts users of new items being deposited;
• the 'media filter' tool, that generates thumbnails of images and extracts the full-text of documents for indexing;
• the 'checksum checker' that tests the bitstreams in your repository for corruption;
• the sitemap generator, which builds compact lists of content to lessen the load created by search engine indexing.

To set these up, you just need to run the following command as the dspace UNIX user:

crontab -e

Then add the following lines:

# Send out subscription e-mails at 01:00 every day
0 1 * * *  [dspace]/bin/dspace sub-daily
# Run the media filter at 02:00 every day
0 2 * * *  [dspace]/bin/dspace filter-media
# Run the checksum checker at 03:00
0 3 * * *  [dspace]/bin/dspace checker -lp
# Mail the results to the sysadmin at 04:00
0 4 * * *  [dspace]/bin/dspace checker-emailer -c
# Regenerate sitemaps at 6:00 AM local time each morning
0 6 * * *  [dspace]/bin/dspace generate-sitemaps

Naturally you should change the frequencies to suit your environment.

PostgreSQL also benefits from regular 'vacuuming', which optimizes the indexes and clears out any deleted data. Become the postgres UNIX user, run crontab -e and add (for example):

# Clean up the database nightly at 4.20am
20 4 * * * vacuumdb --analyze dspace > /dev/null 2>&1

• enhances the ability of major search engines to index your content and make it findable;
• and Discovery (search & browse), OAI-PMH and Usage Statistics all receive performance benefits from regular re-optimization

For much more information on recommended scheduled tasks, please see Scheduled Tasks via Cron. 

Multilingual Installation

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