I have a simply php script on my server and want it to be run every 2 minutes using a cron job.
*/2 * * * * http://mydomain.com/_adder.php
I suspect the command syntax is wrong.
Do I need to add a command before the script url? Another way to run the script?
Any help is very much appreciated.
the cron-job will simply execute a program on the (local) machine.
a URL is NOT a program. it's a link to a ressource.
whether this ressource triggers a PHP-script execution is not of cron's business.
in any case, you could run a cron-job that will periodically visit a given URL. e.g. using the wget command (a "non-interactive web-page downloader")
*/2 * * * * wget --quiet -O /dev/null http://mydomain.com/_adder.php
you can do it as umläute suggest, but being a local file it's actually faster to access from command line php like this:
*/2 * * * * php /path/to/file/_adder.php
there are differences running a script from the command line vs via a browser that may effect the script.
you may need the full path to php on some systems
use php-cgi to make GET request similar to a web browser .
/usr/bin/php-cgi /your_path/_adder.php
if you're using Linux you can use which php-cgi to locate for php-cgi or search for php7.2-cgi if php 7.2 installed on your machine or search using different version . for Windows users search for php-cgi.exe .
I am running Ubunutu Linux server, PHP5, Apache2 and am having trouble getting any sort of cronjob to run through the crontab.
I edit the crontab using
crontab -e
I save the file I want to run:
*/5 * * * * php /home/user/public_html/crx/cronx.php
it saves fine. I can run the file from the console and goes through fine. I can't even find any existing logs for the file. I checked cron was running, stopped and started... no change.
The current php file is just a simple test script that inserts a single line into a database.
I checked the permissions for the file and has read and write. Am absolutely stumped. I can't seem to get ANYTHING to run through cron. Is there something I can run to test permissions?
EDIT
I have also tried the following command
/usr/bin/php /home/user/public_html/crx/cronx.php
I used whereis php and which php to locate and confirm it is all running in the right area
You have too many * values for your times.
Also, cron may not have a PATH set up correctly to use PHP.
Instead try:
*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/php /home/user/public_html/crx/cronx.php
Where /usr/bin/php is the actual path to PHP. From the console you can run which php to see the path to the PHP binary you should use.
EDIT: Here are a couple of more things to try in order to troubleshoot:
# see if cron is running just by having it create a file
*/5 * * * * touch /tmp/crontab-$(date +%s)
Another option:
Set the permissions of your PHP script to 755, and change the beginning to:
#!/usr/bin/php -q
<?php
// rest of script
Then change your cron tab to:
*/5 * * * * /home/user/public_html/crx/cronx.php
I'm still not sure if cron is the issue or the running of the PHP script.
I want to run a cron job without using wget in CodeIgniter.
I am using it like this:
*/1 * * * * wget http://assurance.com/controller/function
It works successfully, but I do not want to use wget.
Is there any another way to run this CodeIgniter script?
You can try and use something like this:
* * * * * /usr/bin/php /pathToTheApp/controller/function
But of course the /usr/bin/php should be your path to the PHP binaries and pathToTheApp should be the absolute path to your CI application.
If you have local shell access on the host, add it to your crontab there.
I needed to do this exact thing recently and couldn't find a complete solution. So I'll try to provide one here.
I used "bash shell" because I wanted to make a command line (CLI) call to my controller into of an http (note: I'm using an ubuntu/linux server.
There are three main parts:
The cron call
The shell script
The controller function
Cron:
in your server cli type this to access crontab: crontab -e
then add your cron call: * * * * * bash /path/to/script/test.sh
(note: I created a folder in my site root called cron, so my path would be:
/var/www/website/cron/test.sh
Shell script:
In that cron folder we made, create a file called " test.sh "
In the file put:
#!/bin/bash
cd /path/to/site
/usr/bin/php index.php controller function
That's it
cron sets up the timer to call the file
shell calls the controller from the CLI
you'll now be able to use $this->input->is_cli_request() in your function for added security.
public function cronTest()
{
if($this->input->is_cli_request())
{
//code goes here;
}
}
Hope this helps save you some time, this took me way longer than expected :)
I have built one php file to check some result, so that I need to setup a cronjob.
I set one to run every 30 minute, so that the results will be send. However, I don't know why my crontab did not run after every 30 minute.
Here is how I set the crontab:
*/30 * * * * php /var/www/html/result.php
I have confirmed my file directory is correct. What I not sure is about the timing part: isn't it possible to use */30 * * * * or 30 * * * * ? I set */30 * * * * and did not work.
Given
*/30 * * * * php /var/www/html/result.php
There are multiple possibilities why it is not working:
First of all it is important to check if the simple execution of php /var/www/html/result.php. This is required. But unfortunately, accomplishing this does not mean that the problem is solved.
The path of the php binary has to be added.
*/30 * * * * php /var/www/html/result.php
to be changed to
*/30 * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/result.php
or whatever coming from which php.
Check the permission of the script to the user running the crontab.
Give execution permission to the file: chmod +x file. And make sure the crontab is launched by a user having rights to execute the script. Also check if the user can access the directory in which the file is located.
To be safer, you can also add the php path in the top of the script, such as:
#!/usr/bin/php -q
<?php
...
?>
Make sure the user has rights to use crontab. Check if he is in the /etc/cron.d/deny file. Also, make a basic test to see if it is a crontanb or php problem.
* * * * * touch /tmp/hello
Output the result of the script to a log file, as William Niu suggested.
*/30 * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/result.php > /tmp/result
Use the -f option to execute the script:
*/30 * * * * /usr/bin/php -f /var/www/html/result.php > /tmp/result
Make sure the format in crontab is correct. You can do so for example using the site Crontab.guru.
To sum up, there are many possible reasons. One of them should solve the problem.
It may be because php is not in the path. crontab has a very minimal path. So, include the full path for your php program.
you can test your cron commands by piping the output to a file, e.g.
*/30 * * * * php /var/www/html/result.php > /tmp/result.log
From this reference page, under "Crontab Environment":
cron invokes the command from the user’s HOME directory with the
shell, (/usr/bin/sh). cron supplies a default environment for every
shell, defining:
HOME=user’s-home-directory
LOGNAME=user’s-login-id
PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:.
SHELL=/usr/bin/sh
Also, /30 syntax might not be supported by all platforms, so, try to change it to 0,30 instead.
Had a similar issue; from command line, it worked, but from cron, no go.
had a "include ("./connect.php"); in my php code for the db stuff.
Removed that, and added the connect.php code directly into the php script, and it worked from cron.
I had a similar issue on Ubuntu 14.04.1 and the problem turned out to be the way I was modifying the crontab:
I was using sudo crontab -e instead of just crontab -e and this caused my changes to be ignored.
I had a funny one regarding this. Although my scripts would run manually, they wouldn't run from crontab.
Turns out that because the script was being run from /usr/bin/php rather that the location of the file (as it does when I run it manually) my php require wasn't finding the files I wanted. Changing that to reflect the full address fixed it.
troubleshooting by running the script as /usr/bin/php -f /var/www/myfile.php helped me find the issue
You can use */30 * * * * wget http://my.domain.com/path/to/php/result.php
But Crontab executes the task using the current user that ran crontab -e. When you use wget it’s handled by Apache using the www-data user/group pair
First, make sure the script works as expected.
$ php /var/www/html/result.php
Second, edit the crontab for the Apache user account
$ sudo crontab -u www-data -e
or
$ sudo crontab -u root -e
Now add the crontab and output to a log file.
*/30 * * * * php /var/www/html/result.php > /tmp/result.log
After a day of puzzling why my script would work directly (to send data in an email to a gmail account) I discovered that all the deliberate sends worked when I clicked the url and all the cron sends went into spam. No idea why but I thought I'd share it.
Willem's answer showed me the way. In my case, I have a "include("connection.php")" inside my code. I changed connection.php to /my/full/path/connection.php. I have some rename() calls with the relative path, and I changed to the absolute path. That worked for me. I hope it can help someone else.
Easy and logical way:
Checking the cron logs at /var/log/cron will give you very useful info
less /var/log/cron
Eg.,
My cron entry is * * * * * /usr/bin/php /cat.php <== Run cat.php every minute
The log file will contain an entry similar to the one below every time a cron entry is run
Jan 24 08:06:01 OlaTower CROND[13641]: (root) CMD (/usr/bin/php /cat.php)
Jan 24 08:07:01 OlaTower CROND[13641]: (root) CMD (/usr/bin/php /cat.php)
Here, the php command will be executed every minute and there will be an entry in the log file every minute
If the entry is not there then crond is not even picking that cronjob. If the log entry is there and still you are not getting the desired output then there is something wrong with the command/application logic
Are you sure it is not running? If you use exec, realize that you are running from cron and the full path for everything is required, so instead of cp, you'll need to use /bin/cp.
Centos 7
For the record (and it could work for other distros)
I had the next script
* * * * * /usr/bin/php -f /var/www/html/cron.php >/tmp/result.txt
But it failed to execute.
In the /var/log/cron log file, I found the next line
crond[2213]: (/usr/bin/php) ERROR (getpwnam() failed)
What is that?
It's simple, the syntax of corn is * * * * * user command (check user)
* * * * * someuser /usr/bin/php -f /var/www/html/cron.php >/tmp/result.txt
Using Ubuntu w/ Vesta :
The following command works perfect for me,
/usr/bin/php /home/admin/web/mydomain.com/public_html/mycode.php
Feel free to comment if you have any question, have a nice day :)
I was stuck too. I am using centos 7 and had to run few php scripts. I initially tried this
$crontab -e
& inserted the scripts to be executed at 12 midnight.
0 0 * * * usr/bin/php /var/www/html/cronjob/myscript.php
However in var /var/spool/mail/centos, it gave me an error in the mail there
/bin/sh: usr/bin/php: No such file or directory
So then I used wget like this,
$ crontab -e
0 0 * * * wget https://myapplicationurl/var/www/html/cronjob/myscript.php
This also gave me an error.
ERROR 404: Not Found.
Then I realized my mistake of specifying the folder, since the url will already be pointing to html folder, the folder from there i to be specified, like this
0 0 * * * wget http://myapplicationurl/cronjob/myscript.php
and it worked !!!
Hope this helps any newbie like me :)
if you php script has an include or require, you must provide the full path yours includes
wrong way
// relative path
require_once("../library/PHPMailer/PHPMailerAutoload.php");
Correct Way
// full path
require_once("/home/bitnami/library/PHPMailer/PHPMailerAutoload.php");
I had same problem with my php. Then I test execute php from root dir:
php -f /var/www/html/my_proj_folder/test.php
and got some errors regarding path to lib (included files), such as parse_ini with argument 'config.ini' <- has been taken from my global lib and lose path when it has been started from root.
So,
try to run your php-file (php -f your.file)
check relative path and try to run with absolute path
check permissions to your.php - it has to have executable flag x (you can see it ls -l your.php and set by chmod +x your.php)
put #!/usr/bin/php -q before <?php in your main/executable file
Can .php be used in Crontab function on Linux or wil it execute only .CGI scripts?
I'm using Plesk Control panel, I did the settings as per the Crontab doc, but i think it's not executing the php files.
Does any one have the Idea about what more to do with
To add to the previous answers, yes crontabs can be used to execute php scripts.
You can either have them run through the php interpreter as Paul and fvu suggested, in which case you need to specify the correct path to the php interpereter ( get it in php by using exec('whereis php'); it will print out the path to php on your system ).
The alternative is to simply use wget to fetch the php file via http which in turn executes it.
* * * * * wget http://yoursite.com/yourscript.php
You can absolutely execute php script from cron.
Like this:
in the crontab:
*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/php5 -q /path/to/script/yourscript.php
Will execute yourscript.php every 5 minutes.
You can only make cron run executables. If you wish to run a PHP script, run php -f followed by the script's filename, e.g.:
/usr/local/bin/php -f script.php