Run a PHP file in a cron job using CPanel

Question

I am just trying to run a PHP script using a cron job within CPanel - is this the correct syntax:

/usr/bin/php -q /home/username/public_html/cron/cron.php >/dev/null

I am not getting any email notifications stating a cron has been completed, do I need to do anything specific with the PHP file?

Signorino

I think it is quite relevant seeing as many projects are hosted on Cpanel, and one would need to know how to run cron jobs if need be – Photoplay

If cPanel isn't allowed on Server Fault or Stack Overflow, where should questions about it be? – Research

quite ironic that this question was classed as 'off-topic' for StackOverflow but is the most active question i've ever had one here..... I hope it helped others :) – Signorino

Thanx @Tatu Ulmanen It works for me! – Lebna

You can get email notifications by removing this part ">/dev/null". Also be sure to add the desired email address as the notification email address in cPanel cronjob section. – Disestablish

Answer 1

In crontab system :

• /usr/bin/php is php binary path (different in some systems ex: freebsd /usr/local/bin/php, linux: /usr/bin/php)
• /home/username/public_html/cron/cron.php should be your php script path
• /dev/null should be cron output , ex: /home/username/stdoutx.txt

So you can monitor your cron by viewing cron output /home/username/stdoutx.txt

Arterio

I am using this now and it works but I do not get any email notification any ideas why not? php /home/username/public_html/cron/cron.php note I had to put the following line at the top of the PHP script #! /usr/bin/php -q – Signorino

If u want cronjob send emails for u, u must use php mail(), i dont thinks cronjob have automatic mail system, unless u using shell scripting or php. – Arterio

When I click on the "cronjobs" tab in cPanel, there are two boxes on the page - one for the command you wish to execute, and another for the e-mail address you want the output to be sent to. This is in cPanel 11. – Poem

What will be full command? I mean full command in one line with all options. – Pitch

@SomyA please could you tell me the command for run java script file. – Arrowhead

@NarenderReddy i thinks this is what you looking for Running Command Line in Java – Arterio

@SomyA thanks for replay i want java script using a cron job within CPanel.THe give command for tun php file but iwant to run java script file – Arrowhead

which language are cron jobs written in? also, i want to apply a cron job to a python/scrapy script that i wrote which requires 'scrapy crawl crawlername' to be executed from the CLI to run? never done this before. any help would be huge <33 – Wilen

How i can limit the size of cron job log file?or create a different log file on daily bases? – Urey

as in unix system you can use something like logrotate for limiting log file size – Arterio

@RanaNadeem you can name the output file as date and it will create new file for every day like /usr/bin/php /home/username/public_html/yourcronfile.php < /home/username/cron_output_`date +\%d-\%m-\%Y-\%H-\%M`.txt – Threefold

Answer 2

I used this command to activate cron job for this.

/usr/bin/php -q /home/username/public_html/yourfilename.php

on godaddy server, and its working fine.

Excitable

What does -q stands for? – Siloxane

@BhavikShah According to php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.options.php, -q is for Quiet mode, suppresses HTTP header output – Photoplay

@Photoplay Thanks. Got it. – Siloxane

Answer 3

>/dev/null stops cron from sending mails.

actually to my mind it's better to make php script itself to care about it's logging rather than just outputting something to cron

Gifford

may I ask how you do that? Doesn't cronTabs output to something anyway? I do >/dev/null 2>&1 at the ending as well... – Darnley

@Darnley if you make a task like this /path/to/file.php > /dev/null it's gonna be silent. – Gifford

Answer 4

This is the easiest way:

php -f /home/your_username/public_html/script.php

And if you want to log the script output to a file, add this to the end of the command:

>> /home/your_username/logs/someFile.txt 2>&1

Washbowl

Answer 5

This is the way:

/usr/bin/php -q /home/username/public_html/yourfilename.php >/dev/null

Sipper

Answer 6

This cron line worked for me on hostgator VPS using cpanel.

/usr/bin/php -q /home/username/public_html/scriptname.php

Fontenot

Answer 7

I've had problems using /usr/bin/php on CPanel as it is compiled as a "cgi-fcgi" binary and not "cli". Try using /usr/local/bin/php or, as it is first in the path anyway, just use 'php' instead:

php /path/to/script.php

If you want to run the script as an executable, give it +x perms and use the following as the first line of the script:

#!/usr/bin/env php

Nellynelms

Answer 8

I hope your problem is with path & php binary as well. If you have fixed the path as per older answers, please use php-cli instead of php command while running cron job.

It may be possible php_sapi_name() is not returning cli. Its returning something else like cgi-fcgi etc.

/usr/bin/php-cli -q /home/username/public_html/cron/cron.php >/dev/null

I hope it will help.

Countrified

Answer 9

This works fine and also sends email:

/usr/bin/php /home/xxYourUserNamexx/public_html/xxYourFolderxx/xxcronfile.php

The following two commands also work fine but do not send email:

/usr/bin/php -f /home/Same As Above

php -f /home/Same As Above

Acidity

Answer 10

Suggested By Experts.

/usr/local/bin/php /home/username/public_html/path/to/cron/script

Fair

Answer 11

It is actually very simple,

php -q /home/username/public_html/cron/cron.php

Elora

Answer 12

For domain specific Multi PHP Cron Job, do like this,

/usr/local/bin/ea-php56 /home/username/domain_path/path/to/cron/script

In the above example, replace “ea-php56” with the PHP version assigned to the domain you wish to use.

Hope this helps someone.

Nate

Answer 13

On a Hostgator CPANEL this worked for me:

php /home/here_your_user_name/public_html/cronJob.php

Florilegium

Answer 14

So here's what happened to me since these solutions are quite correct in term of defining the new Cron job, there was an issue for me that was causing the script to not run, and I'm mentioning to this because at some point, people might confuse if the correct entry is : /usr/local/bin/php or /usr/bin/php or even php.

So basically I had this working using both above entries, until I moved my project to a new VPS with Cpanel, and script was working, everything was correct except the Cron Job. So here's the steps to fix the issue.

1. Check the server time zone.

I had to set my server time to Asia/Tehran which before setting this my Cron wasn't executing at the correct moment and you can set time zone using WHM, Server time.

2. Check if Cron job is ran using : grep "replace with file or whatever you're calling" /var/log/cron

3. Cron job is running, great, let's check if script is working, so go to the location of the script and run the script, which at this point mine was running a simple php artisan in Laravel directory, and then I've got the real issue.

Your PHP requirement version for version 8 show up.

So in Cpanel when you try to define a version for a domain/sub-domain, you can see above it say, the default PHP version is x.xx and at this point I found out I should change it which in WHM, in Software and then MultiPHP Manager, set the PHP version to desired version that Laravel need to ran.

Defining PHP version in Cpanel isn't enough since Cron is not working like that and it's relying on the default version that's defined in WHM or Server.

Columnar