how to execute commands in webserver?

I am trying to setup the google sitemaps thing and have a few questions. First of all, how can I run this command on my webserver:

$ python sitemap_gen.py --config=/path/config.xml --testing

Also, does the /path/ need to be changed to the real path where config.xml is located, or does the program assume root folder by itself?

Thanks.

 

You run the script by typing that command into your servers command line interface. So assuming you don't have physical access to the server your website is on you will need to connect to it via telnet or SSH. Note that most hosting companies do not provide command line access to their servers.

Further, it is a python script to you will need Python installed on your server for it to work. So ask your hosting company if (1) they allow you to connect to the command line (most likely by SSH if they do). And (2) do they have python installed? If the answer to both of those questions is Yes then connect to the command line and run the script by typing it in as you pasted it above.

 

The previous post has information about how to call that function interactively, i.e. from the command line, once, by a human.

If you want to call this from a php script, see the system() function. This could be useful if you want to regenerate your sitemap every so often.

 

exec() also works well.
I suggest you to crontab the command.