I wrote a PHP script that push a CSV file into a database. I want to do this automatically every minute. I know there is a way via cron on Linux but I don't know anything about bash and think cron can't give my PHP file a callback, so I can show a progress bar for the user to see the timer interval. What do I do?
You can enter your jobs using crontab -e. If your default editor is vi, I recommend to change it nano using export EDITOR=nano because it is easy to use for starters.
Every line of the crontab file represents a job. The first 5 tokens are : minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week respectively, the last one is command so in your case first 5 tokens will be * * * * * that means run this job every minutes when the second is '00'.
You can call your php files directly using this command : php /var/www/cron.php & or using a browser wget -O /dev/null http://example.com/cron.php If you use first one you cannot use some $_SERVER variables but if you use second one, it is like a real browser.
In your case you can use like this :
* * * * * wget -O /dev/null http://example.com/cron.php
to add a cron and make it run every minute, type crontab -e and add the following line
* * * * * command you need executing
example:
* * * * * ls -l /home/ > /usr/local/users.txt
* * * * * df -h > /tmp/filesystem_usage.txt
* * * * * service httpd restart
Look at this for a starter: http://kvz.io/blog/2007/07/29/schedule-tasks-on-linux-using-crontab/
Also remember that cronjobs don't support all $_SERVER vars like 'DOCUMENT_ROOT' and 'HTTP_HOST', so try to avoid them, or use a workaround.
Some 'callback' possibilities:
- Let your script trigger another script
- Redirect the output of your cron to an another bash script
- ...
What is wrong with this cronjob?
* * * * * * php -f /Documents/Programs/WeeklyHours/weekly_hour.php
I have combed through the various cron questions on StackExchange and nothing is working. When I run php -f /Documents/Programs/WeeklyHours/weekly_hour.php in the terminal it works perfectly. I know the cron jobs are running because I am getting error mail. At the bottom of the error mail messages it is saying "/bin/sh: Applications: command not found." Any ideas on what I am doing wrong?
Thanks in advance.
You have one more * than required in your crontab entry
Try
0-59 * * * * php -f /Documents/Programs/WeeklyHours/weekly_hour.php
The 0-59 is so that it will run every minute
The cron job likely runs under a different user which does not have its PATH set up the same as you, so it cannot find the php executable. You are able to simply type php because your PATH variable is set up to include its parent directory; that is not necessarily true for all other users.
Explicitly specify the path to the executable, e.g. /usr/bin/php. To figure out which php you're using, type:
$ which php
* * * * * * /usr/local/bin/php -f /Documents/Programs/WeeklyHours/weekly_hour.php >> /ww/xx.log 2>&1
You can view the log.
I am trying to run in mac a php script using cron. I want this php script to run every one minute. I read several sources online and from my understanding is better if I use launchd. In any case, I try to make it work with cron and then if it works fine I might try to use launchd.
So here is what I do:
I wrote this command in a txt file:
* * * * * /usr/bin/php /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/php_test/main_script.php
There I have the path to php (I found it with the "which php" command) and the path to my php script.
I named the txt file: crontasks.txt and I run it through terminal with this command:
crontab /Users/dkar/Desktop/crontasks.txt
When I list the crons (crontab -l) I see that this job is listed. But nothing comes as output every one minute. The output is supposed to be an image stored in a specified folder. What am I missing here?
Thanks in advance
D.
You might have a slight miscomprehension how crond processes the "crontab" files. It would suffice to run the command crontab -e, which would let you edit your personal crontab or you edit the system crontab.
If you use crontab -e it will open the default editor (vi/vim) and you can enter the line:
* * * * * /usr/bin/php /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/php_test/main_script.php
Then you simply save your file. If you want to use the system crontab you will have to edit it directly and enter the line. Additionally the system crontab has one more field for the username. Like this:
* * * * * /usr/bin/php root /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/php_test/main_script.php
On the next full minute your script will be executed by crond.
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
This is driving me a little insane, and I've gone through a hundered different things without touching on the solution; so I may miss out on some details on what I've done so far.
I'm trying to get a Cron job to run on my linux server ive got running in a datacentre. All I'm trying to get to run is a simple php script in the format:
* * * * * php -q /path/to/script/file.php
The php part runs fine if I type it in manually, but nothing happens when the cron runs; it also appears to run in the logs just fine, with no errors.
If i go back and edit with crontab -e, and put in the line
* * * * * echo "test" > /tmp/test.txt
That seems to work ok, it creates the text file.
Has anyone had any problems running a php script in this format?
(Btw I'm just testing with the run every minute, it doesnt work at any time.)
Any help is appreciated.
try invoking php with it's full path, for example /usr/bin/php
the cron will not have the same environment variables as your user profile have, so it might not find the executable.
Try to put full path to php binary (/usr/bin/php or similar)
I also don't have '-q' flag in my distribution. Check it.
Might just be some path craziness: I'd run which php and then copy the full path into cron. On one of my boxes it is /usr/bin/php and so you'd have:
* * * * * /usr/bin/php -q /path/to/script/file.php
Try that and see if it helps.
Perhaps your PHP binary is not in your PATH. Try using the full path:
* * * * * /path/to/php -q /path/to/script/file.php
It's possible that you may need to provide the full path to your php binary
* * * * * /usr/bin/php -q /path/to/script/file.php