using cron and wget to hit a php script
 

Hi,

I have a php script in a web page that needs to run every minute. I'd like to use cron and wget with no output; just hit it and die. In all my research, I've come up with the following and put it in /ect/crontab:

* * * * * wget -q --spider http://mysite.com/index.php?option=com_acajoom&act=cron >/dev/null 2>&1

However, even without the options, it doesn't seem to work. Am I missing something or are there better options for hitting it quick and dying with no output?

360

Have you tried using the full path to wget? Also, try sending the output to a file instead of /dev/null and see if it gives you some more info.

Probably a good idea to wrap the URL in 'quotes' as well.

Dave

Hi,

Thanks for the tips... I tried them but no-luck.

In doing more research, I found:

--spider
When invoked with this option, Wget will behave as a Web spider, which means that it will not download the pages, just check that they are there. For example, you can use Wget to check your bookmarks:

wget --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html

This feature needs much more work for Wget to get close to the functionality of real web spiders.

So i took out all the features including dev/null.

I included the direct path and tried it with and without quotes around the url.

* * * * * /usr/bin/wget "http://mysite.com/index.php?option=com_acajoom&act=cron"

Should I see any output at the command prompt?

How can I invoke crontab manually to run test?

360pro

You can bypass cron and just run it from a console and see what output you get:

gilead,

It ran just fine... the php script was invoked and I received the output of the script via email.

Thanks for your time on this matter.

I will continue to find the bug in cron...

360

No problem - glad it helped...

Generally, if cron has a problem it'll email the root acct (or whoever owns the relevant crontab).
Try
mailx
as the crontab owner eg root
Also, as mentioned try redirecting stdout/stderr to a file until you get it working.

That'll teach me to read more carefully... :)

As chrism01 posted, cron should mail you if it has a problem. If that isn't happening for whatever reason, you can try and force it with this (change the path to mail or mailx and the recipient name for your system):

Solution
 

I was having the same problem as the person who started this thread. After trying about five million combinations, I found that

wget -q -O /dev/null "[your url here]" produces no output at all including the page itself. --spider wasn't working properly, or at least according to what I would expect.