Cron jobs worth setting up on a small website: seven ideas that save time

A cron job is for anything you would otherwise repeat by hand at the same time every day or week: taking a copy of the database, deleting temporary files, importing a price list, sending a summary by e-mail. If you already know how to create one, here are seven concrete uses for a small site on shared hosting. To create one, see cron jobs: what they are for and how to create one.

Seven ideas, most useful first

1 A database copy every night. A mysqldump into a folder outside public_html, named after the day. It is your insurance against a mistake of yours or a plugin’s. The steps are in automatic backups with cron and mysqldump.
2 Clearing out old files. Exports, temporary files and old copies fill the space without anyone noticing. For example, find /home/ACCOUNT/exports -type f -mtime +7 -delete removes whatever is older than seven days. Run it first with -print in place of -delete to see what would go.
3 Replacing the WordPress scheduler with a real cron job. Scheduled posts go out on time even with no visitors. See swapping WP-Cron for a real server cron job.
4 Calling an address on your own site. Many applications ship a file made for this, such as /usr/bin/curl -s "https://yourcompany.com/cron.php?key=SECRET" >/dev/null 2>&1. Put a key in the address, or anyone can call it.
5 Importing data from outside. A price or stock list a supplier drops every night, read by a PHP script. See running a PHP script from a cron job.
6 Sending a report. Today’s orders, enquiries received, space used. See a scheduled report by e-mail.
7 Warning you when something fails. A script that checks a page or a file and sends a notice. See getting an alert when your site goes down.

How often, and where to see the result

Job A reasonable frequency Where you see it ran
Database copy Once a day, in the small hours. The new file in the backup folder.
Clearing files Once a day or once a week. A smaller folder; use >> for a log.
WordPress cron Every five minutes. A scheduled post that goes out on time.
Importing data When the supplier updates, plus a margin. The modification date of the file or table.
E-mail report Once a day or once a week. The e-mail in your inbox.
A cron job spends your account’s resources like a visitor does. Do not schedule anything every minute unless you must: if one run takes longer than the interval they start piling up. The reasoning is in cron jobs.
Keep scripts outside public_html, in a folder such as /home/ACCOUNT/scripts. Nobody can open them from a browser, and they stop depending on the site’s address. Add >> /home/ACCOUNT/cron.log 2>&1 to the end of the line for the first weeks, so you have a record of what happened.

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SEE ALSO

Cron jobs: what they are for and how to create one

A cron job that does not run or sends no output: a checklist

Cron schedule examples: every 15 minutes, weekdays at 8, the first of the month

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