I have 2 php scripts which need to run every few minutes, the php itself is fine as I can trigger it manually by typing http://myfakesite.com/myphpfile.php into a browser. Both work as they should.
I don't have much experience with cron but I have found the crontab file (I am using Parallels Power Panel on a VPN), and it already had jobs to run-parts cron.hourly, daily, weekly and monthly. I added my email address to the MAILTO field, and get a message telling me that cron.hourly is not a directory - even though it is (although it is currently empty).
I also added my own 2 jobs to this file as follows:
*/1 * * * * wget http://myfakesite.com/script1.php
*/5 * * * * wget http://myfakesite.com/script2.php
Neither of these ever get called. In the php script I also have a line to email me once the script is called, so that I know it is working, and have never received an email via the cronjob. If I ssh into the server and use wget the php works and emails me to confirm.
I have also tried
*/1 * * * * php http://myfakesite.com/script1.php
and
*/1 * * * * wget -O /dev/null http://myfakesite.com/script1.php>/dev/null 2>&1
with no luck. The MAILTO in the crontab file never sends me a message to say there was a problem running the script, but clearly it is not doing it.
Can anyone help at all? I have no idea what to try next.
Edit: Found some info that said that the 'not a directory' error can be down to a corrupt crontab file. So I downloaded it copied the info to a new file and uploaded that. The 'not a directory' error disappeared...COMPLETELY. Even if I tell it to look for a folder which I know doesn't exist like cron.myfakefolder I don't get a Not a directory: /etc/cron.myfakefolder email. Replaced my new crontab file with the original, and I'm still not getting any feedback from the cronjob.
Edit 2: As dAm2K and prodigitalson suggested, I tried using the absolute paths to both wget and php. Neither have worked, and I've double checked the locations of usr/bin/wget and usr/bin/php just to make sure they were actually there.
I also checked var/log/cron and var/log/messages, both contained this:
2002Can't perform "download" operation: Requested file "/var/log/cron" is to big to be sent at once. Try to request file in pieces of 512KB
No idea what is happening with this. As I mentioned in edit 1, I'm also no longer receiving error emails even when I purposely add a false location. Is this related to the error in the log files?
Also, I have checked that crond is running and according to both 'System Services' and 'System Processes' it is running.
Try using absolute paths to executables with cron: eg
*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/wget 'http://myfakesite.com/script1.php'
instead of
*/5 * * * * wget http://myfakesite.com/script1.php
Double check /var/log/messages or /var/log/syslog log files for details on cron execution, and what happens to the system in general.
If your script is on the same server, Try execute it with php -q:
*/1 * * * * php -q pathToTheFile/script1.php
Related
Love the fact that I can keep track of my PHP script outputs via e-mail, but I have some running as quickly as once every 15 minutes so this obviously causes an over-influx of e-mails. I'd like to keep things organized in a log folder with my php output included.
Here's my cron job:
*/15 * * * * /usr/bin/php public_html/mysite/folder/script.php
I've tried changing to
*/15 * * * * /usr/bin/php public_html/mysite/folder/script.php >> /mysite/logs/folder/$(date +"\%Y-\%m-\%d_\%H:\%M").log 2>&1
But I'm still receiving error output via e-mail with the error
/usr/local/cpanel/bin/jailshell: /mysite/logs/folder/2017-04-08_10:27.log: No such file or directory
How do I fix this and get my PHP output into a log or txt file?
edit:
for future reference, the proper syntax to do this is:
*/15 * * * * public_html/mysite/folder/script.php >> mysite/logs/folder/$(date +"\%Y-\%m-\%d_\%H:\%M").log 2>&1
The syntax is ok, check the path. You are putting /mysite, but is it really on the root? When you refer to the script you put public_html/mysite.
Make sure what the absolute path to the log file is, and update your crontab.
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 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
I have several PHP files to be run by cron. I set up the crons using command-
crontab crontab.txt
Inside the crontab.txt file, I have written cron commands like this:-
#(Updating tutor activities) - every minute
* * * * * /usr/bin/wget -O - -q -t 1 http://project/cron/tutor_activities.php
But none of the functionalities are working (database queries, sending reminder mails etc.). Running the URLs manually works.
Then I put my mail address in MAILTO and received the mails. In the mail, I received entire HTML source of the page. What is expected in the mail? Why are my functionalities not working?
Updates
If I change my cron commands to
#(Updating tutor activities) - every minute
* * * * * /usr/bin/wget http://project/cron/tutor_activities.php
Still no success and this comes in my mail -
--15:03:01-- http://project/cron/tutor_activities.php
=> `tutor_activities.php'
Resolving project... IP Address
Connecting to test.project|IP Address|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://project./ [following]
--15:03:01-- http://project./
=> `index.html.1'
Resolving project.... IP Address
Connecting to project.|IP Address|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: http://project/home/ [following]
--15:03:01-- http://project/home/
=> `index.html.1'
Resolving project... IP Address
Connecting to wproject|IP Address|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/html]
index.html.1 has sprung into existence.
Retrying.
And lots of index.html.1 , index.html.2 files are accumulating in the root of my project. I do not want these files to be created. Just want the files to execute.
Same results if I use either of the two commands -
* * * * * /usr/bin/wget http://project/cron/tutor_activities.php
* * * * * wget http://project/cron/tutor_activities.php
running php command with MAILTO set sends me this error /bin/sh: php: command not found.
* * * * * php /path/to/test.php
So, I am not able to use php command.
I have written a simple mailto() inside my test.php. The mail does not come when run through cron (using both wget and php fails) but running the URL manually works.
My problem
To make it clear again, my main problem is that the functionality inside the cron files is not running. Creation of files is a secondary issue.
Any help would be appreciated
Thanks,
Sandeepan
if you want to call an url as cronjob, you'll have to use somthing like wget. if it's a php-script on your server it would be easier to use php /...pathtomyscript.../cron/tutor_activities.php
try
which php
The path which is returned should be placed with the command which is passed to run the Cron file.If you are setting up the Cron through Shell,it won't give any problem,but to be assured,try giving absolute path when you are trying to run a php page.
/path/to/php /path/to/cron/script/
Try to give your comand like this,if the problem persists;feel free to discuss.
When you call wget with -O -, it will send the downloaded content to stdout, which cron is sending to you via the email message. In the first case, it's doing exactly what it should.
When you call wget witout the -O parameter, it will try to save the downloaded content as a file of the same name as the web page being downloaded. If it exists, it will add the incrementer to the name, as you saw. In this second case, it's doing exactly what it should.
It's not clear from your question where you want the output to go, but if you want to save the output to the same file each time, use -O myfilename.html.
If your running PHP from cron/command line make sure you put the full path to the php executable
It's entirely possible that PHP's not in the path within the cron environment - it's definitely not going to have the same setup as your regular shell. Try using the absolute path to BOTH the php interpreter AND the php script in the cron command:
* * * * * /path/to/php /path/to/test.php
As for the creation of files, you just have to add a redirect to your wget command:
wget -O - ... http://.... > /dev/null
-O - forces wget to write anything it downloads to standard output, which cron will then happily email to you. By adding the > /dev/null at the end of the command, this output will instead go the Great Bitbucket in the Sky. If you don't want wget's stderr output emailed either, you can also add a 2&>1 after the /dev/null, which further redirects stderr to stdout, which is now going to /dev/null.
I found the problem myself. I did not put the same URL in my crontab file which I was running manually and that was my mistake.
While running manually I was just typing test in the URL, my browsers's list of saved URLs was appearing and I was selecting the URL http://www.test.project.com/cron/tutor_activities.php, but in the crontab file I had put http://test.project.com/cron/tutor_activities.php. I was mistakenly assuming this would run http://www.test.project.com/cron/tutor_activities.php (because we have a rewrite rule present to add www)
But the rewrite rule was redirecting it to http://www.test.project.com/home. That's why the HTML content in the mails.
So, the most important thing to learn here is to make sure we don't miss the minute things and don't assume that we did everything correctly. In my case, better to copy-paste the working URL into the cron file.
An easy and secure (no tmp files) way to do this is to use bash's process substitution:
* * * * * bash -c "/path/to/php <(/usr/bin/wget -O - -q -t 1 http://project/cron/tutor_activities.php)"
Process substitution runs the command within <() and puts the output into a file object that is only visible from the current process. In order to use it from cron, invoke bash directly and pass it as a command string.
And as others have mentioned, use the full path to php which you can find out with which php.