Scheduled Tasks of a Station

Dr.Web Enterprise Security Suite provides the centralized task schedule which is set by the anti-virus network administrator and complies with all the rules of configuration inheritance.

Task schedule—a list of actions performed automatically at a preset time on workstations. Schedules are mostly used to scan stations for viruses at a time most convenient for users, without having to launch the Scanner manually. Besides Dr.Web Agent allows to perform certain other types of tasks as described below.

To edit centralized schedule of regular tasks execution for certain stations and groups, use Dr.Web Security Control Center.

Users at station are not allowed to view and edit scheduled tasks of centralized schedule.

By default, the schedule contains the Daily scan task for stations running Windows OS, which performs a daily scan of a station.

Results of tasks execution according to the centralized schedule are not stored into statistic data of Dr.Web Agent but sent to Dr.Web Server and stored in the Dr.Web Server statistic data.

To edit centralized schedule

1.Select the Anti-virus network item in the main menu of the Control Center, in the hierarchical list of the opened window, select a group or workstation. In the opened control menu, select Task Scheduler. The list with the tasks of the station will be opened.

The majority of tools in this section are unavailable as long as the station or the group you selected keeps the inheritance of settings from a parent group. The following toolbar elements let you change the inheritance settings related to the task schedule:

Inherit settings from policy or primary group—remove personal task schedule settings and set inheritance of settings in this section from a parent group.

Copy settings from policy or primary group and set them as personal—copy task schedule settings from a parent group and assign them to selected stations. That will break the inheritance, and all further changes in the task schedule will be considered personal.

2.To manage schedule, use the corresponding elements from the toolbar:

a)General elements on the toolbar are used to create new tasks and generally manage schedule section.

Create task—add a new task. This action is described in details below, in the Task Editor section.

Propagate these settings to another object—copy scheduled tasks into other objects—stations and groups. For details, see Propagation of Settings to Other Groups/Stations.

Export settings from this section to the file—export schedule to the file of special format.

Import settings to this section from the file—import schedule from the file of special format.

Import of the task list for Dr.Web Server into the Task Schedule on workstations and vice versa is not allowed.

b)To manage existing tasks, set the flags next to the necessary tasks or the common flag in the table header to select all task from the list. As long as the group or the station you selected does not keep the inheritance of task schedule settings from a parent group, the following toolbar elements will be available to manage selected tasks:

Option

Action

Start type

Synchronous type

Run all tasks marked below synchronously. The task with the specified periodicity will be placed in the general queue of the Scheduler tasks to be executed sequentially.

Asynchronous type

Run all tasks marked below asynchronously. The task with the specified periodicity will be executed in parallel with other tasks, out of turn.

Status

Enable execution

Activate execution of selected tasks according to their schedule, if they were disabled.

Disable execution

Disable execution of selected tasks. Tasks remain on the list but will not be executed.

The same option you can specify in the task editor on the General tab by setting the Enable execution flag.

Severity

Make critical

Perform extra launch of the task at next Dr.Web Agent launch, if scheduled execution of this task has been omitted.

Make noncritical

Execute the task only at scheduled time regardless of whether a task launch has been omitted or not.

The same option you can specify in the task editor on the General tab by setting the Critical task flag.

Duplicate settings

Duplicate tasks that are selected in the list of current schedule. When you run the Duplicate settings option, new tasks are created with settings similarly to the selected tasks.

Schedule repeatedly

For tasks which executed once: execute task one more time according to the specified time settings (changing execution multiplicity of the task is described below, in the Task Editor section).

Remove these settings

Remove selected task from the schedule.

Execute task

Execute the tasks selected in the list immediately. At this, a task will be launched even if it is disabled for execution on a schedule.

Edit task

Change task parameters. The Task editor window described below opens.

If you do not need a schedule inherited from the parent group, disable inheritance for the station, leave at least one task and disable its execution.

Task Editor

In the Task Editor you can specify settings to:

1.Create a new task.

For this click Create task on the toolbar.

2.Edit existing task.

Click the name of one of the tasks on the task list and click Edit task on the toolbar.

The window for editing a task opens. Settings for editing of existing task are similar to the settings of creating a new task.

Interface fields marked with the * sign are mandatory.

To edit task settings

1.On the General tab in the General section, you can set up the following parameters:

•In the Name field, specify the name of the task displayed in the schedule list.

•Set the Enable execution flag, to enable the task execution. If the flag is cleared, the task remains on the list but will not be executed.

The same action you can perform from the main window of the schedule via the Status option on the toolbar.

•Set the Critical task flag to perform extra launch of the task at next Dr.Web Agent launch, if scheduled execution of this task has been omitted (Dr.Web Agent is switched off at the due time). If at launch, the task was omitted several times, it will be executed only once.

The same action you can perform from the main window of the schedule via the Severity option on the toolbar.

If several scan tasks must be implemented, only one task will be executed—the first one in the queue.

For example, if Daily scan is enabled and critical scan via the Dr.Web Agent Scanner is omitted, only Daily scan will be executed and omitted critical task will not be done.

•If the Run the task asynchronously flag is cleared, the task will be placed to the general queue of Scheduler tasks that are executed sequentially. Set the flag to execute this task in parallel out of order.

2.In the Time section, specify the task launch parameters:

•In the Periodicity drop-down list, set the launch mode of the task and setup the time according to the specified periodicity:

Launch type	Description
Startup	The task will be launched at the Dr.Web Server start up. No additional parameters required to run the task.
N minutes after initial task	In the Initial task drop-down list, select the task relatively to which the time of current task execution is set. In the Minute field, specify or select from the offered list the number of minutes that should pass after the execution of initial task to start execution of edited task.
Daily	Specify the hour and the minute for the task to be launched at the time specified.
Monthly	Specify the day of the month, the hour and the minute for the task to be launched at the time specified.
Weekly	Select a day of the week, specify the hour and the minute, for the task to be launched at the time specified.
Hourly	Specify a number from 0 to 59 to set the minute of every hour the task will be run.
Every N minutes	The N value should be specified to set the time interval for the execution of the task. At N equal 60 or more, the task will be run every N minutes. At N less than 60, the task will be run every minute of the hour multiple of N.

•Set the Disable after the first execution flag to execute the task only once at specified time. If the flag is cleared, the task will be executed multiple times according to the specified periodicity.
To repeat the launch of task already ones executed, use the Schedule repeatedly on the toolbar of the schedule section.

•Set the Run the task by UTC flag to launch the task relatively the universal time (UTC+0 time zone). If the flag is cleared, the task will be launched by the local time on station.

•Set the Run task with random delay flag for the task to be launched with a random delay after the specified start time of the task. In the Random delay interval field, specify the maximum task launch delay time. The option may be of use if you want to distribute the resource load in a large anti-virus network or in a network whose virtual stations are located within one hypervisor.

3.On the Action tab, in the Action drop-down list, select the type of the task and specify task parameters which are needed to perform the task:

Task type	Parameters and description
Write to log file	String—the text of the message to be added to the log file.
Run program	Specify the following settings: •The Path field—full name (with the path) of the executable file to be launched. •The Arguments field—line parameters for the program to be run. •Set the Wait for the completion of the program flag to wait for the completion of the program which has been launched by this task. At this, the Dr.Web Agent logging the start of the program, the returned code and the time of the program end. If the Wait for the completion of the program flag is cleared, the task become completed right after the launch of the program and the Dr.Web Agent logging only the start of the program.
Dr.Web Agent Scanner. Full scan	Parameters of scanning setup are described in the Configuring Scanner Settings.
Dr.Web Agent Scanner. Custom scan
Dr.Web Agent Scanner. Express scan

Remote launch of the Scanner is available only on stations under Windows OS, macOS and Unix-like OS.

4.When all parameters for the task are specified, click Save to accept changes of edited parameters, if you editing existing task, or to create a new task with specified parameters if you created a new task.