Executing PHP from crontab

manpreet Best Answer 3 years ago

I am utilizing crontab to execute a PHP file as follows:

0 4 * * * /opt/lampstack/php/bin/php /opt/lampstack/apache2/htdocs/tests/test.php

I am pretty sure that the file itself is working properly because if I execute /opt/lampstack/php/bin/php /opt/lampstack/apache2/htdocs/tests/test.php in command line I get the expected results.

In the cron log I can see that it is being called at the specified time, but the php file doesn't run (the php code is just one line that writes to a log file). I thought that maybe it has something to do with user permissions so I tried forcing it to be executed as root (by putting root between the time and /opt/lamp...) but still no luck.

Any words of wisdom?

Kate

manpreet 3 years ago

You could try to specify the path to the php.ini file with the -c switch and also use the -f switch to indicate the file to be executed.

0 4 * * * /opt/lampstack/php/bin/php -c /etc/php.ini -f /opt/lampstack/apache2/htdocs/tests/test.php

You might also want to turn on display_errors and error_reporting

But I also agree with the other responses in that it sounds like an issue with permissions to the log file itself. If you have a global error_log parameter set you can try to echo something out with error_log() in your code.