Cron Job To Run Php File

[ostrich99]

All,

 

I've read the recent cron threads here, but I'm still not exactly sure what I need to do to set this up.

 

I've opened the Cron setup tool in CPANEL and selected the frequency I want the command to run, but I'm still confused as to what to put in for the command.

 

Basically I want it to run a php file like *****/maint/file.php

 

should the command be:

 

GET *****/maint/file.php > /dev/null

 

and is the > /dev/null needed?

 

Thanks for the guidance.

 

Paul

[TCH-Don]

just try

/home/your-tch-cpanel-name/path-to-file/file.name

 

if the file is in a folder below the public_html folder, use

/home/your-tch-cpanel-name/public_html/folder-name/file.name

[TweezerMan]

should the command be:

>GET *****/maint/file.php > /dev/null

and is the > /dev/null needed?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

GET makes a web page request through the web server, just like a browser does, and whatever the web server sends back is returned to the command. In a cron job, any output by a command is interpreted to be an error and e-mailed to the user. The "> /dev/null" discards the output from the GET command, so cron won't be triggered into sending an e-mail when you don't want it to. (Yes, it is probably needed.)

 

Not too long ago, I tried using GET in a cron job on my account and it did not work. I had to use an alternate form of the GET command to get it working:

>lwp-request -m GET http://www.my-TCH-site.com/path/to/file.php > /dev/null

 

Instead of using GET, you might want to try the following in your cron job instead:

>php -q /home/cpanelName/path/to/file.php

 

just try

/home/your-tch-cpanel-name/path-to-file/file.name

 

if the file is in a folder below the public_html folder, use

/home/your-tch-cpanel-name/public_html/folder-name/file.name

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This will work if the file has a shebang line for the first line of the file. Without it, a cron job can't run the script file directly. A PHP script would need the following as the first line in order to be run directly in a cron job:

>#!/usr/bin/php

[a__kc]

Just want to add that

 

wget -q -t 2 --delete-after http://mysite.net/script.php

 

does not appear to work (at least on my server). You get a

 

/bin/sh: line 1: /usr/bin/wget: Permission denied

 

Same thing with using Lynx the text-based browser (this used to work):

 

/bin/sh: line 1: /usr/bin/lynx: Permission denied

[TweezerMan]

Access to GET, wget, and lynx has been removed from the servers as a security measure. You would need to modify your script so it can be run without using these tools.