Cron Job Setup VPS

[rediim]

Hi:
Just a little guidance please relating to cron jobs on my new VPS.

I have a .php file that I want to be run via a cron job on the 15th day of each month. The php file, which I've used on cpanel shared accounts, downloads a file, decompresses the file, and saves the file.

This is what I've done so far:
- created a new directory / folder in the /home/ directory using filezilla;
- uploaded the .php file to that directory;
- used Putty / SSH access, to edit the crontab and include the cron instructions using crontab -e.

Please confirm that this is correct for the cron instructions
0 0 15 * * /usr/local/bin/php /home/newdir/myphpfile.php

I just want to check that the "/usr/local/bin/php" part of the first section of the instructions is the correct path that will run the myphpfile.php as a php file.

After I setup the cron in the crontab, I used this command to check if the cron is working. But I guess I will not see any log record until the cron runs the first time.
grep "update-geolite.php" /var/log/cron

Is there another method to test the cron to ensure it is working OK?


Thanks

 

[Dan]

Hi rediim,

Did you run the command manually in SSH? If it runs manually it should run via cron as well.

I have a few php files that cron runs also and they use /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/bin/php-cgi, you might try that as well.

Hope that helps!

 

[KH-Dmitry]

That's easy.

1) modify your php script to output anything - let it print 'done' for example
2) crontab -e; and then
a) change your job temporarily to run in 5 minutes from now
b) if you have MAILTO="" then comment it out

in 5 minutes, if everything is all right, you'll have a log entry about your script, and the user
the crontab belongs to should receive an email with whatever printed out in #1

if everything is all right, just roll back your changes.