Question

I’m trying to get a file to be automatically run by crontab, contents like so:

SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root
HOME=/

*/5 * * * * php /path/to/script

I’ve put this file called prod.cron into the /etc/cron.d folder but can’t seem to get it to run on it’s own. Running the script directly via command line shows that it works okay, but not sure if the files in cron.d get auto detected or do I need to do something else to init them?

Answer 1

Note that directory /etc/cron.d is intended to be used by packages, crontabs should be installed into an users crontab. That being said, check out the following Cron Issues:

1. The script is not having execute permissions. Use chmod a+x to provide permissions.
2. In the case of php, perl or other scripting language, the path to interpretor or program is not correct. Always provide actual path to
   the interpretor while defining command to run in cron. To find out
   where the program is located, use whereis command. For e.g.
   for php, whereis php. for perl, whereis php, etc.
3. The environment variables required to run the script are unavailable. The cron doesn’t use the same environment of a user. It
   uses its own environment while running the commands. So the variables
   defined in .login or .profile are not visible to him. The most common
   issue is related to PATH variable which is not similar.