Autodnld Manual

Hardware/Software Requirements for autodnld

• A reasonably fast Windows-machine or Unix workstation. The workstation will be unpacking some fairly large files (up to 300 megabytes or so), so a faster processor will speed up the decompression process.
• The computer that runs autodnld must have Internet access to the Intex shipment server and be able to download files using the https protocol. Although the following using ship.intex.com as example,it is recommended that your network allow list contain *.intex.com:443 for this machine to use autodnld.
• Access to an e-mail server running SMTP. We use email to keep you informed of shipments that are downloaded.
• Enough disk room to hold the Intex database. Consult the CMO File Size section for more information.

You can check whether you can access ship.intex.com using https by going to https://ship.intex.com/https_test.html If you receive an error, check with your network administrator about firewall settings. If you need set proxy server to access intex.com, add http_session_header to your autodnld.ini file.

If you are running UNIX, Perl version 5 must be installed on your system. More information on running autodnld on Unix is available in Unix Instructions.

Find out your IP address

Consult https://www.whatismyip.com/ for your external IP Address.

Windows: Scheduling autodnld to Run Regularly

We recommend using the Windows Task Scheduler for autodnld. More information can be found at docs.microsoft.com

Security

Autodnld uses HTTPS with the highest TLS version available.

CMO Data

Log Files:

• *.eot: Contains the time that the shipment was posted to Intex's servers for shipment.
• cmotrack.log: Autodnld remembers which shipments it has already downloaded by saving the timestamps from .eot files and saving them in this file.

Autodnld stores log files in the /autodnld/log/ directory.

CMO Shipping Schedule

Intex provides two types of files for each deal in a library. CDI files contain static information such as payment rules and waterfalls, and are rarely updated after they are initially shipped to you. CDU files are updated regularly and provide updated information about the deal. CDU files are usually updated by the following schedule:

Flash data

Flash CDU's are CDUs that contain the latest underlying pool factors, but with Intex-forecasted tranche (bond) factors. Generally, the official tranche factors become available a day or two later. They require an additonal subscription from Intex. Flash CDU's are shipped intermingled with normal CDU's If you are running autodnld with the -purge flag, then autodnld will delete any flash files for which the full CDU has been downloaded. In IntexCalc-Local mode, you must add the flash directory to your CDU path under Tools->Options->Data Access. The flash directory is usually cmo_cdu/flash/ relative to your regular cdu path.

Flash CDUs are created on the following schedule. Please note: GNMA C tapes are not flashed. Megas, Giants, Platinums Shipments
These are agency pass-through securities which are backed by a set of (existing) underlying agency pools. IDX, IDL, INF files shipments
These miscellaneous Intex data tables are posted daily.

Weekend/Holiday Shipments
If a calendar day shipment falls on a weekend or a holiday, the shipment is automatically shifted to the next business day.

Historical Performance Data

There are two different formats for Historical Performance (perf) data. The older format perf files are stored in \cmo_cdu\perfdata\, while new format files are stored in \cmo_cdu\data\0000\.

Pool Data

Pool data contains information on Agency Pools used for packing regular CMO deals.

There are some optional lines you can add to autodnld.ini to modify the way pooldata is handled
pool_data_months_back
pool_data_purge
pool_data_skip_geo

There is no "dbstatus" for pooldata as there is for CMO data. Instead we use a "self-healing" algorithm which automatically downloads any new plus any missing and/or damaged older data. You will only receive an error email notification if there is a problem downloading a file.

Every time autodnld runs, it checks the time stamp of the file eot.txt in the pooldata directory. If the stamp has not changed, no further actions are taken. Autodnld remembers the latest timestamp it has processed in the log/pooltrak.log file.

If the timestamp has changed, the file mbsstat.qa is downloaded from the pooldata subdir. This file contains a list of all the pooldata files for the last two years. We then read each line in mbsstat.qa, and look for that file on your local file system. If the local file is missing, has a different size, or has a different timestamp, we add the file to the to-be-downloaded list. (NOTE: When we download pooldata files, we set the time/date stamp on the files on your network file system, and we verify that setting the stamp worked)

The flagged files are downloaded and uncompressed. After downloading, we double-check the size, and we try to set the time/date stamp. If we downloaded mbscusip.inf, it is automatically copied to the cmo_cdu subdirectory.

You can specify how many months back you want to check pooldata files using the pool_data_months_back flag in your ini file. The default value is two months back.

subdirectory layout for pooldata

There are three subdirectory files for pooldata

• header
• yearly
• monthly

The header directory contains:

• .hdr files: xxx
• .hsp files: daily pool factor updates
• mbscusip.inf: pool name lookup file.

The header directory for pooldata is cmo_cdu/mbspools.

The yearly subdirectories contain .dat files, which are the latest factors for the pools.

The monthly subdirectories contain:

• .dat files: ARM factors
• .geo files: other pool information.
• .qtl files: quarterly information.
• .bo files: breakout data.

Which pooldata files should you keep?

At a minimum, we recommend:

• all the files in the header dir e.g. pooldata
• all the files in the latest yearly subdir e.g. pooldata/2025
• all the files in the two latest monthly subdirectories e.g. pooldata/2025/0004 and pooldata/2025/0003

If you want to do any kind of trending analysis on pools, you will need more subdirectories.

If you don't need information about the geographical distribution of pools, you may be able to remove the .geo files.

Pool Data: Shipping Schedule

Special CDI's - Shipped initially to new clients
The following CDI files will be included in your initial shipment of pooldata files.

• M#MASTER.CDI
• G#MASTER.CDI
• G#NASTER.CDI
• P#MASTER.CDI
• P#NASTER.CDI
• Q#MASTER.CDI
• S#MASTER.CDI
• C#MASTER.CDI
• D#MASTER.CDI
• F#MASTER.CDI

All other files are updated either daily or monthly according to the following schedules. The dates refer to the days of the month that Intex expects to create the update files. Intex usually posts the update files for download the same day.

DBStatus Report

Autodnld checks the integrity of your Intex data using DBStatus. DBStatus is included as part of your autodnld installation, and is available for download separately on the download page. While autodnld runs DBStatus at the end of every session, you can also run the utility separately:

Running DBStatus Manually

1. Open a Command Window
2. Change to the scripts subdirectory. By default this is c:\intex\autodnld\scripts.
3. Run the dbstatus program. You will need to specify the cdi and cdu paths.
   dbstatus.exe -cdi_path c:\intex\cmo_cdi -cdu_path c:\intex\cmo_cdu

Run DBStatus without any arguments to see its usage page.

DBStatus Automatic Upload

Files that are missing or damaged are cataloged into /autodnld/log/dbstatus.rpt. Intex can then use this report to re-ship these files to you. Autodnld can automatically upload this report to Intex's servers. See the upload_dbstatus ini flag for more information. If you prefer to send over dbstatus.rpt files manually, please email them to autodnld_help@intex.com.

Error Codes

Autodnld contains a number of standard error codes. Please contact autodnld_help@intex.com for support resolving any of these issues.

Emails

By default, autodnld uses blat.exe to send emails on Windows, and a sendEmail perl script on Unix systems. Before sending an email, autodnld writes the text of the email to /autodnld/log/email.txt. A longer list of emails is stored in /autodnld/log/email.log. Email functionality can be disabled by removing the email_to flag from your autodnld.ini file. For further options on emails, please review the following ini flags:

• email_to
• mail_bin (Unix Only)
• mail_exe
• mail_exe_option
• mail_server (Windows Only)
• mail_from (Windows Only)
• mail_sender
• minimal_email

Disk Room Needed for Intex Data Files

The amount of space that you need to allocate for Intex Data will vary greatly based on your subscriptions. Please contact Intex at autodnld_help@intex.com for information on how much data to expect.

Lock File (Multiple Autodnld Instances)

More information on the autodnld lock file system is available in the FAQ.

Partial CDU's

These CDU files will require no additional data processing on your part. They are kept in a the /cmo_cdu/partial/ of your Intex data directory. The partial directory will have monthly subdirectories under it. Intex products only use partial CDU data if the normal CDU file is not available.

Post-Processing After Running autodnld

Before autodnld finishes running, it looks for

• post_process.bat
• post_process.pl

in the /autodnld/scripts/ directory.
If the .bat file is found, autodnld runs: cmd.exe /c post_process.bat
If the .pl file is found, autodnld runs: perl.exe post_process.pl

Note that the post processing script is run every time autodnld is run. Post processing will still occur even if no data was downloaded or there were errors downloading data.

Pruning the Intex CMO Database

Running autodnld with the -prune flag will prune the database based on the cdu_purge_depth parameter of your autodnld.ini file.

Intex does not recommend purging data. It can be safe to move some data files to a backup location. Please contact Intex at autodnld_help@intex.com before moving files or using the purge option.

Summary Log File

Autodnld keeps a summary log of all files downloaded within the /autodnld/log/autdnld.sum.log file. It consists of

1. A timestamp
2. The location of the file on Intex's server
3. The location of the compressed file on your system (This file is deleted after it is decompressed)
4. The size of the file in bytes
5. The amount of time to download the file in minutes

You can consult this file for a list of files processed by autodnld when setting up post-processing. Note that autodnld.sum.log contains the last several days of files, not just the files downloaded during the most recent session.