As implied in the title, the Cron Job is supposed to execute a php file (update.php, to be specific). The php file then writes to a csv file stored in the same directory.
I have the time set to * * * * * so that it executes every minute. The command is written as follows:
php -q /home//public_html/wallboard/update.php
I don't believe this is causing any errors, though it also doesn't seem to write to the CSV file. When I visit update.php in a browser, however, it executes and writes to the CSV file immediately. I'm not experienced with Cron Jobs and I'm sure there's an issue, but I don't know what exactly that issue is. Let me know if you have suggestions/questions. Any help is appreciated!
Current Command:
* * * * * usr/bin/php -q /home/<user>/public_html/wallboard/update.php
update.php:
<?php
include('lib/HelpDeskView.php');
include('lib/WallboardDisplay.php');
include('helpdesk.csv');
$helpdesk = new HelpDeskView();
$text="\r\ntest,test,test";
file_put_contents( "helpdesk.csv" , $text, FILE_APPEND);
Since your script resides in your public_html directory you can use wget for your Cron Job
wget -O - -q https://yoursite.com/wallboard/update.php
-O - output is written to the standard output in this case it will go to the email address you specify in CPanel
-q quiet mode
IMHO the best way is to contact support and ask them about command line syntax.
This is how I'm doing it at my linux server using cPanel.
This runs script.php which is stored in public root. Course, replace <username> in command line with your username.
At another server I'm using same command line with /usr/bin/php instead of php at the beginning of line, but I'm aware that not all servers use same command line. Some require php-cli in command line instead of php, some don't "like" -f argument, etc. So try various combinations.
To find more suggestions check out this SO topic too: Run a PHP file in a cron job using CPanel
Important thing: When trying different commands wait at least a minute (this case) to see if it works because Cron doesn't fire your script immediately.
Try to execute the same command in PHP CLI and check if it gives you any error, you might be missing some libraries or references required for CLI execution.
/usr/bin/php -d register_argc_argv=On /home/USERNAME/public_html/DOMAIN/artisan AMIR:HOME
i want to set a cron job on a server but its not working. I know there are hundreds of links on web that shows how to setup a cron job but i cant seem to make it work. What im doing now is:
1) Running crontab -e.
Then it shows bunch of lines in the command line.
2) I go to the bottom and add */5 * * * * path/to/myfile.php
and then i exit the editor in command line. Please tell me whats wrong here. Do i need to put my file in a specific folder? or do i need to go to the desired folder and then use crontab -e, or something else. Please forgive me, this is my first cronjob, hoping to be better next time.
Here are the pictures of what im doing.
Did you restart the cron service after you updated the file?
Have you tried executing the php script from the command line first to verify that it's executing as expected? It might be that the cron task is executing but the script is failing. If the script is fine, you might want to try using php as a command followed by the path and filename of the php file and then quitting the execution after it's done with -q.
*/5 * * * * php path/to/myfile.php -q
The problem could well be that you are trying to execute a PHP file and your system is unaware of what to do with it.
Is your PHP file executable?
You can make it executable by running
$ chmod +x file.php
and if you add a shebang to it
#!/usr/bin/php
<?php
// ...
the PHP script can be executed by running
$ ./file.php
Alternatively, you need to run the PHP interpreter and pass it the path to the file as an argument.
$ php file.php
For reference, see:
http://php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.usage.php
as part of a php-slim web application, in my init.php file I require a Crontab.php which contains the following code:
<?php
// clears any existing crontab jobs first
exec("crontab -r");
$ctCommand = '"*/1 * * * * php ./ProcessCycleTimeData.php"';
exec("(crontab -l 2>/dev/null; echo " . $ctCommand . " ) | crontab -");
exec("crontab -l");
?>
When I run the commands manually, the job gets added and I can see it being recorded, however it doesn't seem to run. However, when I run php ./ProcessCycleTimeData.php it works fine. Any ideas where to troubleshoot this?
I'm looking into the error logs, and every minute I get the following log:
crontab: no crontab for daemon
You can use crontab -e to edit the crontab, this will open your default editor (generally vi if other is not set).
Edit the crontab for the user you need this script to run, and add a line as:
*/1 * * * * php ./ProcessCycleTimeData.php
This means
Every one minute
Note:
The PHP snippet you provide is trying to edit the crontab and add the above line. However it might be failing due lack of permission.
I managed to get it working. My solution was to check if the crontab was actually running by appending the crontab job with >>/tmp/auto-update.log 2>&1 which allowed me to further investigate the issue.
I found that the crontab was indeed running, but as a different user (hence why when I was manually calling crontab -e I could not see the job since I am calling it as my own username.
The crontab was also actually invoking my PHP script, where I could then find out the errors in the auto-update.log, which happened to be due to incorrectly stating the require paths.
I've been having some issues with crontab recently. After switching servers, I realized none of my cronjobs are being run. After looking at PHP info, I realized php was run with CGI, so I realized I had to switch lynx -dump URL_HERE to php -q PATH_HERE.
In the actual PHP file, I stared it out like #!/usr/bin/php -q to define where php is located on my server. However, it's not getting run. I've even set up crontab to send me an email once anything runs. No email. I've checked my junk, trash, spam, and I've even tried switching emails. Nothing.
Here's what I have now: * * * * * php -q /home/USER/public_html/file.php.
If I copy & paste it into the command line, it works wonderfully. If I run it through crontab, it doesn't get run.
You are missing envrionment variables. Try a simple test like this
add this to your crontab
* * * * * set > /tmp/vars
wait 2 -3 minutes, go back and remove the crontab entry you just created.
Next,
From the shell command line you normally use
set > myvars
diff myvars /tmp/vars
This will show you the differEnce in envIrionment. Modify your cron job environment. Just add what is needed.
You can do a couple things in order to debug this.
1) In your crontab change your entry to:
* * * * * php -q /home/USER/public_html/file.php > /tmp/filecron 2>&1
Make sure you edit the entry by typing:
crontab -e
Then run:
tail -f /tmp/filecron
To debug the output as it runs.
2) As sudo user or root, tail the cron log to make sure your cron is executing properly:
sudo tail -f /var/log/cron
The first step will give you information related to the php file itself (syntax errors etc) if that is what is failing. The second step will help you out if the crontab itself is not configured properly.
You are intending this job to run every 5 minutes right ? This is what it will do with your stated line.
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