How do I set up a cron job on a VPS running Kloxo?

Question

I need step by step explanation on how to setup a cron job on my VPS server to run once every hour. I'm using Kloxo panel. And how do I know the path to the PHP interpreter?

Format:

PATH-TO-PHP -q FULL-LOCAL-PATH-TO-DOMAIN/cron.php

Answer 1

Run this command to edit your cronjobs:

crontab -e

And a crontab file can look like this:

# min    hour   day   month   dayofweek   command
15      *       *       *       *       /home/jarmund/crons/somescript.php

If you need to run more than one command, just add a new line in the similar format below. * means "all" as usual, in other words, the entry above runs /home/jarmund/crons/somescript.php "15 minutes past, all hours, all days, all months, all weekdays". To store it, just save and exit to the temporary filename that was suggested. NB: The example above assumes that the php script you want to run has the path to its interpreter set in it. If not, you need to include that in the command, such as with:

/usr/bin/php /home/jarmund/crons/somescript.php

crontab -e takes you to whichever editor is set in your shell. If you don't want to use your default one for whatever reason, just:

export EDITOR=nano

...for example, beforehand. Assuming you use bash, that is.

Answer 2

From a shell, run type php. It will give you the path to the PHP interpreter. (It is probably /usr/bin/php.):

$ type php
php is /usr/bin/php
$ 

To run a cronjob every hour, you'll need some entries like:

0 * * * * /usr/bin/php /path/to/whatever/cron.php

If crontab -e doesn't give you a nice header, here's one you can copy and paste into every crontab(5) you edit:

# m h  dom mon dow   command