How to execute a Symfony command as cron job? - php

Question

I have this simple command in symfony :
use Symfony\Component\Console\Command\Command;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Output\OutputInterface;
class AuctionEndCommand extends Command
{
protected function configure()
{
error_log(print_r('test',true), 3, "/tmp/error.log");
$this->setName('desktop:auction_end')->setDescription('Execute when auction is end.')->setHelp("Identify winners for auctions");
}
protected function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output)
{
// outputs multiple lines to the console (adding "\n" at the end of each line)
$output->writeln([
'User Creator',
'============',
'',
]);
// outputs a message followed by a "\n"
$output->writeln('Whoa!');
// outputs a message without adding a "\n" at the end of the line
$output->write('You are about to ');
$output->write('create a user.');
}
}
Now when I execute : /var/www/myProject/bin/console desktop:auction_end this command works fine. But when I try to execute as a cron in linux this script doesn't start :
In linux as sudo I did :
nano crontab -e, and the cron :
* * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/myProject/bin/console desktop:auction_end > /dev/null
What I'm doing wrong, can you help me please ? Thx in advance and sorry for my english

Answer 1

I can keep it very short. You will need to use PHP to execute the console.
* * * * * php -q /usr/bin/php /var/www/myProject/bin/console desktop:auction_end > /dev/null
Writing the output of a cron job that you are testing to a file will help you debug errors. All output is now lost in the void :)
* * * * * php -q /usr/bin/php /var/www/myProject/bin/console desktop:auction_end > /home/<user>/crons/auction_end.cron.txt
Edit
It might be that your php should be used as absolute path.
* * * * * /path/to/php /path/to/bin/console symfony:command
Or even by specifying the user to execute the command with:
* * * * * root /usr/bin/php /path/to/bin/console command:to:execute
Also make sure that the root user has permission to execute files in your symfony project.

Answer 2

What user are you executing the cron as?
Symfony requires write access to ( depending on version ) app/cache && app/log(s) || var/cache && var/log(s) if the user you're executing the command as doesn't have write access to the directories you're trying to write to then your operation will fail.
A good way of fixing this would be to check the error logs, either in var/log(s) app/log(s) or check the apache2 error logs in /var/log/apache2/error.log I would guess one of these logs will contain a hint to your problem.

Answer 3

If you run it as root, does that work:
* * * * * root php /var/www/myProject/bin/console desktop:auction_end > /dev/null
See if that works.