By newbie8-1 on

Hello again.

My site has rss news feeds that do not "update" automatically. I learned that the cron jobs need to be configured for it to automatically update.

I installed Drupal using cpanel/fantastico. I have seen a cron jobs area at cpanel and there is a blank slot to enter something to run.

What should I enter in that cpanel/cron jobs blank area?

Please note that I am a newbie and would not understand Drupal or php linggo.

I have researched on the topic but none of the answers seems to fit with the cpanel cron jobs topic.

Thank you.

Comments

heine’s picture

heine commented

Does HOWTO: Install Drupal using cPanel subheading Cron tasks contain the relevant information?
--
The Manual | Troubleshooting FAQ | Tips for posting | How to report a security issue.

newbie8-1’s picture

newbie8-1 commented

Thank you for your prompt reply.

Based on the topic/link you suggested, it still does not answer it clearly for a newbie like me.

I am currently inside the cron jobs area inside cpanel and there is a space which says "command to run" and below that are some parameters relating to "time" and below that are buttons: "save crontab" and "reset changes".

What should I input inside the "command to run" area?

Is it ...www.example.com/cron.php ?

The instructions provided are not clear for newbies.

Thanks again.

Cromicon’s picture

Cromicon commented

wget -O /dev/null http://www.yoursitename.com/cron.php 2>/dev/null

drupalnesia’s picture

drupalnesia commented

I know this thread very old, but I want to answer using CPanel method, rather than general *nix.

If u use CPanel the command is: /home/your_cpanel_account/public_html/cron.php

So, if your website is: www.drupal-id.com then CPanel will automatically named your CPanel account as: drupalid, thus your command is:

/home/drupalid/public_html/cron.php

Example: running daily cron at 5 am is:

0 	5 	* 	* 	* 	/home/drupalid/public_html/cron.php
heine’s picture

heine commented

From the page:

To run cron.php every day set the Minute and Hour fields to 0 and the rest of the fields to *. The command to run is:

GET http://www.example.com/cron.php > /dev/null

(note, the only cpanel server I had access to required GET)

--
The Manual | Troubleshooting FAQ | Tips for posting | How to report a security issue.

newbie8-1’s picture

newbie8-1 commented

Thank you both for your inputs. I have noticed that there are slight differences with both commands. Will they have the same results?

This is something to add to the "manual" if it works. Will try it out and will let you guys know if it works.

How can I tell if it will work?

newbie8-1’s picture

newbie8-1 commented

It works! I checked the aggregator area and it shows that the news feeds have been refreshed. Thank you once again for the help and support in this wonderful community.

Ricky_O’s picture

Ricky_O commented

I too spent quite a bit of time on this issue.
For two years I have had to suffer the indignancies of CPanel's ridiculous docs.
It wouldn't be so bad if they at least made it possible to submit corrections to their documents. I'd do it for free, if they wouldn't make it so full of rings to jump through just to log in.

Again, thanks to all of you who helped!!!

radj’s picture

radj commented

this worked for me using Cpanel on byethost.org but I changed it to wget instead based on this comment since the server is running Linux.

wget http://www.example.com/cron.php > /dev/null
feconroses’s picture

feconroses commented

This worked for me as well! using ANHosting and Cpanel.

anawillem’s picture

anawillem commented

i am working with the scheduler module, and wanted to report some weird results.

with cron as follows:
/usr/bin/lynx -source http://www.netsquared.org/cron.php (every 15 minutes)

1) i create a post to publish at 2:29.
2) i wait for 2:30, and then 2:45 - nothing
3) i check in the status report to see if cron is running and is SAYS it is.
4) when i run cron manually at this point (2:53), the post publishes.

with cron set up as follows:
/usr/bin/wget -O - -q -t 1 http://www.netsquared.org/cron.php

1) i create a post to publish at 2:29.
2) i wait for 2:30, and the post publishes.

why the difference? i just want to understand in general - outside of making this work. why would status report say cron had run when in actuality it did not?

--
anawillem
http://jellobrain.com

mattcasey’s picture

mattcasey commented

Just FYI for others: "/dev/null" is used to suppress the output and email notices you would otherwise receive

Aurochs’s picture

Aurochs commented

Great and thank you! that helped me
Hv foll positive notice to email


--2010-12-05 02:28:01--  http://www.gamepart.ru/cron.php
Resolving www.gamepart.ru... 89.111.177.184
Connecting to www.gamepart.ru|89.111.177.184|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 0 [text/html]
Saving to: `cron.php'

     0K                                                        0.00 =0s

2010-12-05 02:28:01 (0.00 B/s) - `cron.php' saved [0/0]

Gamepart, Krambol

Muslim guy’s picture

Muslim guy commented

URL to your cron.php inside your drupal installation

http://domain.com/cron.php

http://domain.com/mydrupal/cron.php

*Download and use poormanscron.module

newbie8-1’s picture

newbie8-1 commented

Oops it is not working.

I am receiving many emails with this "/bin/sh: /usr/bin/GET: Permission denied" regarding the cron jobs. I thought it was working but it only got "refreshed" when I typed www.example.com/cron.php

Thanks!

divawebmistress’s picture

divawebmistress commented

my fellow newbian..... (LoL)

You are in luck! I was in your shoe before and nobody seemed to understand what it means when you have no idea what these codes mean.

1) While in the "Cron Jobs" section, select either Standard or Advance
2) The minutes, hours, month, etc. should be the easy part
3) Now here's what you need to input in the command line...
cd 'type in your site path here' ; php -q 'cron.php' > /dev/null 2>&1

mine is rather lengthy, but you should get the gist of it....
cd '/.../.../.../.../rcForum/' ; php -q 'cron.php' > /dev/null 2>&1

I hope that helps you.

Diva Webmistress

http://ranchcardoso.biz/rcForum
http://bodyinparadise.com/bpForum

newbie8-1’s picture

newbie8-1 commented

Thanks for the input Diva Webmistress. How will I know if it is working already?

divawebmistress’s picture

divawebmistress commented

Be sure to set the cron job to check for feeds every 5 minutes, then go to your log files and it should give you something like this...

cron 09/18/2006 - 10:00 Cron run completed Anonymous Visitor details

As soon as you know it's working, be sure to change your cron job to check for feeds every hour or more.

I hope it worked for you.

Diva Webmistress

http://ranchcardoso.biz/rcForum

newbie8-1’s picture

newbie8-1 commented

Hi again.

It does not seem to work since I am now getting these emails instead from the cron daemon "/bin/sh: line 0: cd: http://example.com: No such file or directory" .

I apologize that this is getting to be an old topic but I can't seem to make it work. Is it the host?

Thank you again.

divawebmistress’s picture

divawebmistress commented

Are you typing in "http://www.example.com" as your site path?

Your site path should be your actual website name or the root directory path from your hosting company. It's where all of your files are contained within their server.

What is your website and forum site name?

Diva Webmistress

http://ranchcardoso.biz/rcForum
http://bodyinparadise.com/bpForum

Muslim guy’s picture

Muslim guy commented

Poormanscron.module then, its easy to install, no messy table, just upload it to your `modules' folder

Then admin/settings/poormanscron - set it time interval you wish

newbie8-1’s picture

newbie8-1 commented

Hi.

My website is www.thewatchworks.org hosted by hostgator and I installed drupal using cpanel's fantastico. It is the latest version of Drupal.

As you may see, I have some rss feeds there which I want to automate.

Thank you.

giorgosk’s picture

giorgosk
Location Chios, Greece 🇬🇷
commented

What MuslimGuy means is :

1. Download poormanscron from http://drupal.org/project/poormanscron to your desktop

2. Upload the file (the gzipped file) to drupalfolder/modules using the CPanel File Explorer
(In your CPanel find file explorer, navigate to the modules folder and then click "browse" to upload the file
when the file is in the folder click on its name and on the right side should give you an option to "extract contents" this will "unzip" the file inside the modules folder)

3. Go to your drupal admin/settings/poormanscron and configure it

--
Chios Greece sightseeings

------
GiorgosK
Web Development

newbie8-1’s picture

newbie8-1 commented

That was the best solution to the problem! It was that simple...LOL! Only a module was needed.

Cheers and thank you to all that helped-out!

Muslim guy’s picture

Muslim guy commented

Thank you kingeo for the URL

I havent been able to memorize Drupal URLS / links to modules

halftone’s picture

halftone commented

I think Poormanscron is a bit greedy on server resources and probably not the best idea if you run it often. The Sanitycheck module doesn't like it, anyhow.

I'm on Clook (great ISP:-) and their CPanel crontab doesn't allow WGET or GET for security reasons, but this appears to work:-

/usr/bin/php -q /home/myusername/public_html/cron.php

(adjust '/home/mydomain/public_html/' to suit your hosting co's server path)

However, crontab emails me each time cron.php has run and every mail contains a ton of this sort of stuff 

<br />
<b>Warning</b>:  session_start() [<a href='function.session-start'>function.session-start</a>]: Cannot send session cookie - headers already sent in <b>/home/username/public_html/includes/session.inc</b> on line <b>10</b><br />
<br />
<b>Warning</b>:  session_start() [<a href='function.session-start'>function.session-start</a>]: Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent (output started at /home/username/public_html/includes/session.inc:10) in <b>/home/username/public_html/includes/session.inc</b> on line <b>10</b><br />
<br />
<b>Warning</b>:  opendir(misc/fscache/4A) ...etc...

(NB I've edited my actual 'username' out of the above)

This looks like some sort of cookies issue, through running cron.php outside a browser session (?) It doesn't seem to stop it working; Drupal Watchdog logs 'cron run completed'. Once I was sure it was working I appended '> /dev/null ' to the crontab command-tail and it is now working silently, no more emails nor log entries.

Regards
Tony Sleep http://tonysleep.co.uk

rettahchm’s picture

rettahchm commented

I am restricted to this method in cPanel: /usr/bin/php -q /home/myusername/public_html/cron.php

This only runs cron for the main site. How do I run it for a sub domain site?
--
Mr Chatter

harriska2’s picture

harriska2 commented

I have subdomain sites and the method works fine in them. Assuming your subdomain is under, let's say /home/myusername/public_html/domain1 then your cpanel entry would look like:

/usr/bin/php -q /home/myusername/public_html/domain1/cron.php

another cronjob would be set for:

/usr/bin/php -q /home/myusername/public_html/domain2/cron.php

and so on. One cron job per subdomain.

faqing’s picture

faqing commented

This method

/usr/bin/php -q /home/cpanel_user_name/public_html/cron.php

works fine with me. If you want to be informed via email, then do not use -q

If your site is: www.domain.com/drupal, then

/usr/bin/php -q /home/cpanel_user_name/public_html/drupal/cron.php

This one is also ok:
cd /home/cpanel_user_name/public_html/drupal/ ; php cron.php

The method
GET http://domain.com/cron.php > /dev/null
works with my Ubuntu localhost, but does not work for Cpanel.

My cpanel version is 1.0.

particle’s picture

particle commented

How does this work when all the sub-domains share the same code base and use /sites/domain to differentiate them? How do you call cron for each site separately?

faqing’s picture

faqing commented

try this for subdomain.domain.com:

/usr/bin/php -q /home/cpanel_user_name/public_html/subdomain/cron.php

You need to tell your cron.php located (drupal installed).

particle’s picture

particle commented

That isn't going to work. I have 4 Drupal sites all using a common Drupal install in the public_html directory. The sites are called through /sites/site1 /sites/site2 etc. All four sites use separate database tables but share the exact same cron.php file:

/home/cpanel_user_name/public_html/cron.php

It makes it a no-brainer for updating Drupal code but it's impossible to run cron for the add-on sites. How do you call cron for a specific site using /usr/bin/php (and GET / WGET don't work)?

Leeteq’s picture

Leeteq commented

Is the above correct - that it is not possible to get cron to work in multi-site setup?

If so, is it possible to get around this with some programming of the script?
Do we need a combination of a modified script and a special drupal module that goes with it?

I would like to get automated cron to work on multi-site setups where most or all the sites require login to access the data.

.
--
( Evaluating the long-term route for Drupal 7.x via BackdropCMS at https://www.CMX.zone )

Jeff Burnz’s picture

Jeff Burnz commented

@halftone - totally off topic but how is Clook working out, I need to switch hosts and was looking closely at Clook, are you on shared or VPS etc? I'm at Kualo right now, no probs but for various PHP5 related reasons I have to move...

/Jeff

Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.
marywel’s picture

marywel commented

hi ... this was helpful to me, however, after following the instructions and installing the module, when i went to configure it it said:
warning: Missing argument 2 for drupal_get_form()
um, so where do i go from here ???
please and thanks :)

giorgosk’s picture

giorgosk
Location Chios, Greece 🇬🇷
commented

So in this case visit
http://drupal.org/project/poormanscron
development > all pending issues

if you don't find anything
fill out a new a bug report or support request for pathauto 5.x
so people involved in the project can either fix the bug or
help you with your problem

GiorgosK
------
Good read for newbies > http://drupal.org/node/120612
Lots of Discussion and help is going on in http://groups.drupal.org/ too, join in

------
GiorgosK
Web Development

harriska2’s picture

harriska2 commented

Thanks, worked like a charm.

To test if it is actually firing you can remove the last section - > /dev/null 2>&1 and make sure you have a good email address in your crontab section of your cpanel. Once you're happy, add in the > /dev/null 2>&1 section or just try to remove your email address - or do both.

Another way is to go into your 5.x install of drupal and look in admin -> logs -> status and see when cron last ran -- see if it updated.

petrica.martinescu’s picture

petrica.martinescu commented

First of all you have to set permission for your file to be able to execute it... then you need only this line: php -q /home/username/publi_html/file.php where username is your main user for cpanel. -q for quite mode to not return status.

DocMartin’s picture

DocMartin commented

Just noticed that if hit Advanced User option in my cPanel - even tho not planning to do advanced stuff, I find:

Hint: to run PHP files, enter the command as follows (modify to fit your needs):
GET http://yourdomain.com/path_to_file/file.php > /dev/null

- didn't get such a hint with Standard skills option (err, no cron skills at all in my case, but no option for that).
- maybe handy if cron commands can differ somewhat between versions of cPanel - or (maybe happens more) between hosts, as way of checking command to use.

CheungChauHK 長洲HK - South China Sea island in Hong Kong.

____________________________
DocMartin and Hong Kong Outdoors

thoughtvoid’s picture

thoughtvoid commented

This is the email I get..

Warning: main(./includes/bootstrap.inc): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/user_name/public_html/cron.php on line 9

Warning: main(): Failed opening './includes/bootstrap.inc' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/user_name/public_html/cron.php on line 9

Fatal error: Call to undefined function:  drupal_bootstrap() in /home/user_name/public_html/cron.php on line 10

I have obviously changed my username, but any ideas??

==================================

EDIT >>> I now have it working correctly with

cd /home/user_name/public_html/ ; php cron.php

Works fine but took some poking and hoping until it did

waynedrupal’s picture

waynedrupal commented

Thanks thoughtvoid!!! The following command in cpanel 10.9.0-RELEASE in Cron Jobs under Advanced Tools worked for me too:

cd /home/user_name/public_html/ ; php cron.php

Where I changed user_name to my site's username (username used in ftp). I checked the Administrator>Logs in Drupal 5.1 and noticed the following:

cron 04/18/2007 - 21:26 Cron run completed

Awesome!! Now I just need to change the time to run each hour instead of 5 minutes that I chose!

rousehouse’s picture

rousehouse commented

Hi folks - I run my site as an add-on domain in CPanel. I tried everything above, and the last one is the only one that worked for me:

cd /home/user_name/public_html/ ; php cron.php

Thanks a bunch!

faqing’s picture

faqing commented

Yes, This one works for me also. Others suddenly do not work (it worked before).
cd /home/cpanel_user_name/public_html/drupal/ ; php cron.php

ardarvin’s picture

ardarvin commented

I tried the above cron line, and it almost(?) works. I'm using Drupal 6 Beta 3, which may throw things off. Anyway I get the following error message in my email:

"We were unable to use the MySQLi database because the MySQLi extension for PHP is not installed. Check your PHP.ini to see how you can enable it."

I'm hosted at hostgator, and I'm not sure if I need to enable something on their end, or on the Drupal side of things.

ThompsonAlex’s picture

ThompsonAlex commented

Below are the steps to run Drupal 53's cron.php in my cpanel

1. click on cron jobs
2. click on standard
3. set email to your dedicated email in case anything goes wrong
4. set command as "php /home/user/public_html/Drupal53/cron.php" (without double quote)
5. set the rest as Every Minute, Every Hour, Every Day, Every Month, Every Week Day

Notes :

1. user in step 4 must be your user name in your hosting package
2. Drupal53 in step 4 may not be a must but I do that because I put all Drupal files in a folder instead of my www site.

Happy Cron ^_^

heine’s picture

heine commented

This is wrong; cron.php needs to be accessed via the webserver. Do GET http://www.example.com/cron.php > /dev/null or wget -O /dev/null http://www.yoursitename.com/cron.php 2>/dev/null mentioned earlier in the thread not work for you?

In desperation, one can also setup a cronjob on another system (such as http://www.webcron.org/).
--
The Manual | Troubleshooting FAQ | Tips for posting | How to report a security issue.

ThompsonAlex’s picture

ThompsonAlex commented

Dear Heine,

Have you try on it? It works and I get Cron Status restart counting in the log's status session.

Thanks for replying.

ardarvin’s picture

ardarvin commented

Seems like we are rehashing things a bit here, but I think the problem with GET, is that most servers don't allow it.

I know when I try it, I receive the following error:

/bin/sh: /usr/bin/GET: Permission denied

For me: cd /home/ardarvin/public_html/site2/ ; php cron.php

is the closest I've come to getting cron to run, as I at least get a drupal error response...the mySQLi error. Anyone know how to overcome this one? Again, I'm using Drupal 6, Beta 3.

ajeancharles’s picture

ajeancharles commented

"cd /home/cpanel_username/public_html/ ; php cron.php" !
Of course you have to replace cpanel_username by your cpanel user name.
We probably should take all these FAQ's and write a "how to" book for Drupal
Thank you! all

jazzdox’s picture

jazzdox commented

I have Drupal 6.2 running and followed the instructions per David Mercer's Drupal 6 book which says to open the cpanel and insert:

/usr/bin/lynx -source http://www.mysite.org/cron.php

and asked email be sent to me per cron job.

I too received: /bin/sh: /usr/bin/lynx: Permission denied

There are several variants posted here and I was wondering if someone could point out which one I should use?

jazzdox’s picture

jazzdox commented

I believe I tried every answer here but the only one that worked is:

cd /home/cpanel_user_name/public_html/ ; php cron.php

Thanks all

Hopefully I haven't open some huge security hole!

edumdq’s picture

edumdq commented

That worked just fine for me: "cd /home/cpanel_username/public_html/ ; php cron.php"

Thanks!

visionquest’s picture

visionquest commented

I have found you can also use CURL to call the URL for cron.php

This means you can set up a separate cron job for each multisite domain/subdomain


e.g. */5 * * * * /usr/bin/curl -s http://subdomain.example.com/cron.php

Try it first without the -s switch (silent) to see that it is working or with a -v switch for verbose output.

Noel

lungtung’s picture

lungtung commented

subcrip

adamcarsonb’s picture

adamcarsonb commented

I use cpanel, and this is what ended up working for me. I've got several subdomains to run cron on.
command: /usr/bin/curl -s http://subdomain.example.com/cron.php

c.s.h.jenkins’s picture

c.s.h.jenkins commented

I tried to follow all the help about this but because of the difference between setups in the hosts I only got there by trial and error, using examples and help files wherever I could find them. It took 10 goes until the mails I got back (set up through cPanel) stopped having various errors:

  • Permission denied
  • command not found
  • No such file or directory

For me, hosted at x10hosting, in cPanel, the command that works is:

wget http://mydrupalusername:mydrupalpassword@example.com/cron.php

It was very frustrating but the system was very good at sending feedback by mail.

Hope that helps someone!

prenk10’s picture

prenk10 commented

I tried to follow all the help on this site and I found that this worked on my hosting and different hosting accounts of my friends:

php -f /home/CpanelUsername/public_html/site/cron.php

let me know if it works.

totocol’s picture

totocol commented

Hello everyone,

Just need a bit of a hand, I was running my cron jobs using poorsmancron but web hosting company has said

There has been a critical bug found with drupals poormanscron. The developers of the software have not released an official fix for this problem.

The critical bug in the poormanscron script can eventually lead a server to come to a halt, and require a reboot. This will offcourse breach our terms and conditions and mean that the site found to be behind the outage will be terminated.

They have also recommended two different ways for the command to run to enter in Cpanel

Our sever accepts both GET or wget. Curl can also be found in the /usr/bin

/usr/bin/php -q /home/theircpanelname/public_html/file.php

(adjust '/home/mydomain/public_html/' to suit your hosting co's server path)

Another option is */15 * * * * /usr/bin/curl -s http://subdomain.example.com/cron.php

I have tried using both options but in both cases I get an email saying "No input file specified."

I have written */15 * * * * /usr/bin/curl -s http://mywebsite.com.au/cron.php

and

/usr/bin/php -q /home/mywebsite.com.au/public_html/cron.php

What am I missing that the cron.php file that is located in my root folder is not running?

If I run mywebsitename.com.au/cron.php from my browser, the cron job runs fine.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Raul

Raul
raulcaceres.me

dannz’s picture

dannz commented

I tried to follow all the help about this but because of the difference between setups in the hosts I only got there by trial and error, using examples and help files wherever I could find them. It took 10 goes until the mails I got back (set up through cPanel) stopped having various errors:

* Permission denied
* command not found
* No such file or directory

For me, hosted at x10hosting, in cPanel, the command that works is:

wget http://mydrupalusername:mydrupalpassword@example.com/cron.php

This is the only one which worked for me - must be the same sort of setup in the host. Thanks :)

Dralion’s picture

Dralion commented

I use Hostgator for my hosting. I have only one account with them. So I have my principal account and my other domains are implemented from my principal account (we can set up unlimited other domains with only one account). I could get cron jobs working without any problem. I'll first explain how my site is set up, then will provide the commands for the principal domain, and for the other domains that are implemented as subdomains.

For this post let's assume my principal domain name is principalD.com
let's assume my other domain name is otherdomain.com
First I created a subdirectory called drucms in my public_html account where I installed my drupal files. Then I created in public_html a file called index.php that redirects to "http://principalD.com/drucms/" so I can keep my public_html directory clean and could easily add other applications later on. The cron command for this domain is:
/usr/bin/wget -O - -q "http://principalD.com/drucms/cron.php" > /dev/null 2>&1
I set it to run hourly.

now for my other domain which is installed
My other domain is installed in my primary domain under "public_html/otherdomain.com". To keep things clean and neet I created another subdirectory "public_html/otherdomain.com/drucms" and installed my drupal files there. I created a file index.php under "public_html/otherdomain.com" that redirects to "http://otherdomain.com/drucms/".
The cron command for this domain is:

/usr/bin/wget -O - -q "http://otherdomain.com/drucms/cron.php" > /dev/null 2>&1

and it works for me. Hope this can help others.

kostask’s picture

kostask commented

had the same issue and filed a ticket at hostgator
the right command would be:

cd /home/[username]/public_html/; ../../../usr/local/bin/php -q cron.php

for a drupal installation at the root of the server,

hope this helps

ilw’s picture

ilw commented

This what worked for me:

wget http://mydrupalusername:mydrupalpassword@example.com/cron.php

Thanks!

PMorris’s picture

PMorris commented

This method worked for me on shared hosting with hostgator:

wget http://username:password@domainname/cron.php >/dev/null 2>&1

BUT a new cron text file gets left in my root directory everytime cron runs which I found annoying so I ended up using this method that works perfectly and directs all output to an error log instead of email:

php /home/myaccountname/public_html/cron.php >> /home/myaccountname/error_log 2>&1

ilw’s picture

ilw commented

Great! that was very helpful...

magicman’s picture

magicman commented

Should anyone need it here is HostGator's link to cpanel cron commands.

http://support.hostgator.com/articles/cpanel/what-do-i-put-for-the-cron-...

lias’s picture

lias commented

/usr/local/bin/php -q /home/username/public_html/cron.php

timo12’s picture

timo12 commented

Does anybody know how to run this kind of cron job script in cpanel?

curl -s -o /dev/null http://www.domain.com

Thanks for help!

ramones79’s picture

ramones79 commented

This worked for me like a charm - setup this command to run from the Cron :
php /home/[your username]/public_html/yourdomain.com/cron.php

ajiooo’s picture

ajiooo commented

I set a cronjob at cpanel, but it does not run at all. I am sure that my command is correct since I have tested by running the command manually.

I am curious or should I set it at root panel? Please advise.

Anonymous’s picture

Anonymous (not verified) commented

Hi, I am a total newbie but I think I found the solution to run cron for Drupal 7 from cpanel (I am hosting with Goddady):

First, you log in as administrator to your Drupal 7 site.
You go to Configuration / System / Cron
Then copy the URL that is after the text "To run cron from outside the site, go to"

Then log in to your cpanel on Goddady, go to where you need to put the command line to run your cron job and write

curl [paste link here]

(Without the [])
It worked!

You can check it works when you go back to Drupal / Configuration / System / Cron.
It will tell you the last time it was run. Try setting it up for a frequency of 5 minutes at the beginning to check it.

Good luck!

System Lord’s picture

System Lord commented

It's remarkable that here in 2018, decent instructions (for newbies), is still not available. I've searched for days for the right way to set up cron in cpanel and FINALLY I find the best answer in the very last comment of a 12 year old thread...from a newbie!! For what it's worth, because I don't even know if anyone is still alive in this thread, thank you! And thank you, fabitas!

Drupal, in regards to your help files, please keep in mind that your audience is not all techies! Some of us just want to be webmasters and not Drupal engineers.

vm’s picture

vm commented

unsure why https://www.drupal.org/docs/7/setting-up-cron-for-drupal/configuring-cro... didn't work as documentation?

System Lord’s picture

System Lord commented

This was one of this first docs I found. I had been looking for command examples to use in cpanel. I got to: 

How to set up a cron job

"...if you manage your website through a web-based control panel such as cpanel, Plesk, or Virtualmin and Webmin, you will use the web interface."

and went to the cpanel link provided. After getting frustrated with that documentation I completely forgot about the rest of your referenced document. 

I just finished it and see that it answers my question nicely. Bad on me, and I retract my comment on Drupal. 

I'm glad you came back to post that link. Thank you.

hockey2112’s picture

hockey2112 commented

Thank. YOU. This is the only one that would work on my Hostgator reseller shared hosting. You are a life saver!