Run a PHP file in a cron job using CPanel [closed]

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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?

If cPanel isn't allowed on Server Fault or Stack Overflow, where should questions about it be? — brimstone
– brimstone, Commented Apr 16, 2016 at 20:48
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. — Dushan
– Dushan, Commented Apr 28, 2022 at 16:17

FrontEnd Expert · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-17 09:57:58Z

111

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.

edited May 17, 2013 at 9:57

FrontEnd Expert

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answered Mar 13, 2012 at 10:37

Pank

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2 Comments

Bhavik Shah Over a year ago

What does -q stands for?

William Over a year ago

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

tomb · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-01 04:02:24Z

73

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

edited May 1, 2013 at 4:02

tomb

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answered Sep 7, 2011 at 11:18

Somy A

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11 Comments

Zabs Over a year ago

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

Somy A Over a year ago

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.

user3640967 Over a year ago

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.

Auj Over a year ago

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

Narender Reddy Over a year ago

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

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k102 · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-07 11:22:45Z

28

>/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

edited Sep 7, 2011 at 11:22

answered Sep 7, 2011 at 11:15

k102

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2 Comments

ThomasK Over a year ago

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...

k102 Over a year ago

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

Emmanuel · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-14 22:53:10Z

20

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

edited Nov 14, 2015 at 22:53

answered May 6, 2015 at 11:51

Emmanuel

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Asi · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-25 20:30:52Z

17

This is the way:

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

answered Jan 25, 2014 at 20:30

Asi

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Wh1T3h4Ck5 · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-26 21:08:39Z

13

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

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

edited Jul 26, 2017 at 21:08

Wh1T3h4Ck5

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answered Apr 12, 2016 at 21:27

Mike Volmar

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BenKennish · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-21 11:42:26Z

11

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

answered Jan 21, 2016 at 11:42

BenKennish

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JH_ · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-24 05:46:22Z

7

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.

edited Feb 24, 2017 at 5:46

JH_

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answered Aug 2, 2016 at 8:01

Lakin Mohapatra

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Sajjad · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-05 09:51:38Z

4

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

answered Oct 5, 2017 at 9:51

Sajjad

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Ali Akram · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-30 07:02:04Z

3

Suggested By Experts.

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

answered Jul 30, 2018 at 7:02

Ali Akram

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Greenonline · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-20 17:59:01Z

2

It is actually very simple,

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

edited Apr 20, 2019 at 17:59

Greenonline

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answered Apr 20, 2019 at 16:22

Dushyanth Kandiah

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Anjana Silva · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-14 21:29:40Z

1

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.

answered Feb 14, 2019 at 21:29

Anjana Silva

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Nicoli · Accepted Answer · 2020-10-08 14:55:49Z

0

On a Hostgator CPANEL this worked for me:

php /home/here_your_user_name/public_html/cronJob.php

answered Oct 8, 2020 at 14:55

Nicoli

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Atlas-Pio · Accepted Answer · 2023-09-27 17:02:17Z

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.

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.

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

cssyphus · Accepted Answer · 2025-10-20 16:59:11Z

0

On my particular webhost, a shared hosting account, I was unable to get my PHP script to run via a cron job.

I tried all of the suggestions in all of the answers in this thread, but nothing worked. The php script did not run.

However, this worked perfectly (as the command for the cron job):

curl -s "https://example.com/myscript.php"

(The "-s" stands for silent - no output)

edited Oct 20 at 16:59

answered Oct 20 at 16:53

cssyphus

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