Drupal: How to Run Cron
This article would tell you how to set cron launching.
Drupal performs the following tasks using cron: indexing content for search, sending emails to subscribers, and other functions – modules can create regular tasks.
The tasks are run calling cron.php which is located in the site root. Therefore it is necessary to include calling cron.php in crontab. Period will depends on site traffic (from 30 minutes to 1.5-2 hrs).
Solutions
- Manually.
- From OS server.
- Through hosting control panel.
- Using additional Drupal modules.
- Using exterior services.
- Calling cron.php from your site but from other hosting crontab is available at.
Manually
example.com/cron.php
(A blank page will open. In the case of successful performing, you will see a message in logs)
Drupal 6: admin/reports/status/run-cron
“Status report” page will open (admin/reports/status) with a message about executing this command.
Drupal 5: admin/logs/status/run-cron
“Status report” page will open (admin/reports/status) with a message about executing this command.
From OS server
Unix
It is necessary to create .crontab file with home folder and insert a line with time and name of the script.
Windows
Through hosting control panel
Alternatives of cron.php launching commands
- Through lynx or wget
- Tthrough /usr/local/bin/php
First of all you should get know if there is a command and path to it:
which curl
which lynx
which wget
Through lynx or wget
You can easy call cron.php through lynx or wget.
Ready shell-script which can help you in this is located in scripts/cron-lynx.sh. You should just correct host name (but do not specify localhost, specify it as you site is available from the web).
Script file should be executable at least for its owner.
Example (run cron.php every hour):
0 * * * * /usr/bin/wget -O – -q http://www.yoursite.com/cron.php
0 * * * * /usr/bin/lynx -source http://www.yoursite.com/cron.php > /dev/null 2>&1
before you insert these commands to crontab, please check if the program (wgetorlynx) is in/usr/bin. To checkwgetpath, runwhereis wget– you will see the list of file containing ‘wget’.
Many hostings run cron.php every hour, on 38 minute:
38 * * * * wget -O – -q <a href="http://www.example.com/cron.php<br />
38" title="http://www.example.com/cron.php<br />
38">http://www.example.com/cron.php<br />
38</a> * * * * lynx -source <a href="http://www.example.com/cron.php" title="http://www.example.com/cron.php">http://www.example.com/cron.php</a> > /dev/null 2>&1
How you can run cron. php every day at 1.00 pm and 1.00 am?
0 1,13 * * * wget -O – -q http://example.com/cron.php
Using of additional wget utility without parameters (default) means: number of loading attempts 20, and duration of every attempt is 900 secs (15 mins) !!! It is a huge time…
"wget -O – " command means that you will run wget utility the only time.
curl:t is
curl –silent –compressed http://example.com/cron.php
With command: /usr/local/bin/php /home/example.com/cron.php
In this case you should include files to cron.php by relative path (not absolute path). Here is how cron. php should looks like:
<?php
// $Id: cron.php,v 1.36 2006/08/09 07:42:55 dries Exp $
/**
* @file
* Handles incoming requests to fire off regularly-scheduled tasks (cron jobs).
*/
$_SERVER[‘HTTP_HOST’] = ‘example.com';
$_SERVER[‘REMOTE_ADDR’] = ‘127.0.0.1’;
$_SERVER[‘REQUEST_METHOD’] = ‘GET';
chdir(‘/home/example.com/public_html’);
include_once ‘./includes/bootstrap.inc';
drupal_bootstrap(DRUPAL_BOOTSTRAP_FULL);
flashvideo_cron();
/*
$users = db_query(‘SELECT * FROM {users}’);
while($user = db_fetch_array($users)) {
echo $user[‘name’] . ‘\n';
}
echo ‘all';
*/
Using additional Drupal modules
If crontab is unavailable on the hosting, you can use poormanscron module. Drupal loads scheduler’s tasks when visitors apply to pages.
Poormanscron allows compare date of the previous cron launching with the current date. If the dofference is more than specified time period, it will run cron.
With the help of exterior services
There are a special websites which allows setting of cron launches on your site:
