WebNotify - recent changes alert

Web Changes Notification Service

Each TWiki web has an automatic e-mail notification service that sends you an e-mail with links to all of the topics modified since the last alert.

Tip: Instead of subscribing here, it is easier to "watch" topics of interest. Watching topics gives you the choice of immediate notification or digest notification.

Users subscribe to email notifications using their WikiName or an alternative email address, and can specify the webs/topics they wish to track, Whole groups of users can also be subscribed for notification.

The general format of a subscription is:

three spaces * subscriber [ : topics ]

Where subscriber can be a WikiName, an E-mail address, or a group name. If subscriber contains any characters that are not legal in an email address, then it must be enclosed in 'single' or "double" quotes. Please note that the guest user TWikiGuest does not have an email address mapped to it, and will never receive email regardless of the configuration of that user.

topics is an optional space-separated list of topics:

• ... without a Web. prefix
• ...that exist in this web.

• Using wild-card character in topic names - You can use * in a topic name, where it is treated as a wildcard character. A * will match zero or more other characters - so, for example, Fred* will match all topic names starting with Fred, *Fred will match all topic names ending with Fred, and * will match all topic names.
• Unsubscribing to specific topics - Each topic may optionally be preceded by a '+' or '-' sign. The '+' sign means "subscribe to this topic". The '-' sign means "unsubscribe" or "don't send notifications regarding this particular topic". This allows users to elect to filter out certain topics. Topic filters ('-') take precedence over topic includes ('+') i.e. if you unsubscribe from a topic it will cancel out any subscriptions to that topic.
• Including child-topics in subscription - Each topic may optionally be followed by an integer in parentheses, indicating the depth of the tree of children below that topic. Changes in all these children will be detected and reported along with changes to the topic itself. Note This uses the TWiki "Topic parent" feature.
• Subscribing to entire topic ("news mode") - Each topic may optionally be immediately followed by an exclamation mark ! and/or a question mark ? with no intervening spaces, indicating that the topic (and children if there is a tree depth specifier as well) should be mailed out as complete topics instead of change summaries. ! causes the full topic to be mailed every time even if there have been no changes, and ? will mail the full topic only if there have been changes. One can limit the content of the subscribed topic to send out by inserting %STARTPUBLISH% and %STOPPUBLISH% markers within the topic. Note that "news mode" subscriptions require a corresponding cron job that includes the "-news" option (see details).

Examples: Subscribe Daisy to all changes to topics in this web.

   * daisy.cutter@flowers.com

   * daisy.cutter@flowers.com : Web*

   * DaisyCutter: Petal* (1) WeedKillers (3) Pretty*Flowers

   * StarTrekFan: Star* - *Wars - *sInTheirEyes - *shipTroopers

   * daisy@flowers.com: NewsLetter?

   * buttercup@flowers.com: NewsLetter! (1)

   * GardenGroup: AllNewsLetters? (3)
   * petunia@flowers.com: - ManureNewsLetter

   * 'IT:admins' : Web*

A user may be listed many times in the WebNotify topic. Where a user has several lines in WebNotify that all match the same topic, they will only be notified about changes that topic once (though they will still receive individual mails for news topics).

If a group is listed for notification, the group will be recursively expanded to the e-mail addresses of all members.

Warning: Because an email address is not linked to a user name, there is no way for TWiki to check access controls for subscribers identified by email addresses. A subscriber identified by an email address alone will only be sent change notifications if the topic they are subscribed to is readable by guest users. You can limit what email addresses can be used in WebNotify, or even block use of emails altogether, using the {MailerContrib}{EmailFilterIn} setting in =configure.

Tip: List names in alphabetical order to make it easier to find the names.

Note for System Administrators: Notification is supported by an add-on to the TWiki kernel called the MailerContrib. See the MailerContrib topic for details of how to set up this service.

Note: If you prefer a news feed, point your reader to WebRss (for RSS 1.0 feeds) or WebAtom (for ATOM 1.0 feeds). Learn more at WebRssBase and WebAtomBase, respectively.

WebSearch - search TWiki site

WebIndex - list of topics

• • Call the twiki/bin/statistics script from a cron job, once a day is recommended. This will update the WebStatistics topics in all webs.
  • Attention: The script must run as the same user as the CGI scripts are running, which is user nobody on many systems. Example crontab entry:
    0 0 * * * (cd /path/to/twiki/bin; ./statistics >/dev/null 2>&1)
  • There is a workaround in case you can't run the script as user nobody : Run the utility twiki/tools/geturl.pl in your cron job and specify the URL of the twiki/bin/statistics script as a parameter. Example:
    0 0 * * * (cd /path/to/twiki/tools; ./geturl.pl mydomain.com /urlpath/to/twiki/bin/statistics >/dev/null 2>&1)

• The twiki/bin/statistics script can also be executed as a CGI script, just enter the URL in your browser. Examples:
  • Update current month for all webs you have access to:
    /twiki/bin/statistics

• • Update Mar 2025 for the ProjectX, ProjectY and ProjectZ webs:
    /twiki/bin/statistics?logdate=202503;webs=ProjectX,ProjectY,ProjectZ

• Each access gets logged as:
  | <time> | <wikiusername> | <action> | <web>.<topic> | <extra info> | <IP address> |
• Example log entry:
  

• Actions are logged if enabled in configure by the {Log}{action} flags
• Logged actions:

  Script	Action name	Extra info

% crontab -e

• TWikiAccessControl describes how to restrict read and write access to topics and webs, by users and groups
• SitePermissions lists the permissions settings of the webs on this TWiki site