Cron Jobs and Scheduled Tasks in ISPConfig

⏰ Cron Jobs Configuration

Creating Cron Jobs

1. Navigate to Sites → Cron Jobs
2. Click "Add new Cron Job"
3. Configure cron settings:
   • Parent website: Select website
   • Minutes: 0-59 or * for every minute
   • Hours: 0-23 or * for every hour
   • Days: 1-31 or * for every day
   • Months: 1-12 or * for every month
   • Weekdays: 0-7 (0 and 7 = Sunday) or *
   • Command: Full command to execute
   • Active: Yes
4. Save cron job

Cron Schedule Format

* * * * * command
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ └─── Day of week (0-7, 0/7=Sunday)
│ │ │ └───── Month (1-12)
│ │ └─────── Day of month (1-31)
│ └───────── Hour (0-23)
└─────────── Minute (0-59)

Common Cron Schedule Examples

Cron Command Examples

PHP Scripts

# Run PHP script
/usr/bin/php /var/www/clients/client1/web1/web/cron.php

# With specific PHP version
/usr/bin/php7.4 /var/www/clients/client1/web1/web/script.php

# WordPress cron
/usr/bin/php /var/www/clients/client1/web1/web/wp-cron.php

Shell Scripts

# Run bash script
/bin/bash /var/www/clients/client1/web1/private/backup.sh

# Make script executable first
chmod +x /var/www/clients/client1/web1/private/script.sh

URL Fetch (wget/curl)

# Fetch URL with wget
/usr/bin/wget -q -O /dev/null https://yourdomain.com/cron.php

# Using curl
/usr/bin/curl -s https://yourdomain.com/cron.php > /dev/null

Cron Job Output and Logging

Redirect Output

# Discard output
command > /dev/null 2>&1

# Log to file
command >> /var/log/mycron.log 2>&1

# Log errors only
command > /dev/null 2>> /var/log/cron-errors.log

# Log everything with timestamp
echo "$(date): Starting cron" >> /var/log/cron.log
command >> /var/log/cron.log 2>&1

Email Notifications

Cron sends output to email by default. To control this:

# Disable email
MAILTO=""

# Send to specific email
MAILTO="admin@yourdomain.com"

# At beginning of crontab or in ISPConfig command field
MAILTO="admin@yourdomain.com"
0 0 * * * /path/to/script.sh

Common Cron Job Tasks

• Database backup: Daily MySQL dumps
• Log rotation: Archive old logs
• Cache clearing: Remove temporary files
• Data synchronization: Sync with external services
• Report generation: Create daily/weekly reports
• WordPress maintenance: wp-cron.php execution
• Email queue processing: Send queued emails
• Sitemap generation: Update XML sitemaps

Troubleshooting Cron Jobs

• Not running: Check if cron job is active
• Permission denied: Verify file permissions and ownership
• Command not found: Use full paths to commands
• Wrong user: Cron runs as web user, not root
• No output: Check log redirection
• Time zone issues: Server time zone affects schedule

Testing Cron Commands

1. Test command manually first:

   su - web1 -s /bin/bash
   /usr/bin/php /var/www/clients/client1/web1/web/test.php

2. Check cron logs:

   grep CRON /var/log/syslog
   tail -f /var/log/cron.log

3. List user's cron jobs:

   crontab -u web1 -l