Background jobs cron

Manual › Operations · also on phprs.eu

Some work is not done at a person's request but at a given time: publishing a scheduled article, sending notifications and the newsletter, retrying undelivered mail, the weekly backup.

It works without any setup too

By default these jobs run when the site is visited. A site with ordinary traffic therefore does not need to set anything up. On a site that nobody visits at night, however, an article scheduled for 6:00 is published only with the first morning reader – and the newsletter goes out later than you wanted.

Cron ensures exact timing

1. Open Settings → System status, section Background jobs (cron).

2. Click Create the cron address. A ready-made line appears:

   */5 * * * * curl -s "https://www.example.com/ulohy?token=…" > /dev/null
   

3. Paste the line into the task scheduler (cron) in the hosting control panel. If the hosting does not want the whole command but only an address, enter just the address and an interval of 5 minutes.

Hosting without cron can be replaced by any service that can call an address regularly (for example monitoring tools such as UptimeRobot).

The address contains a secret token. If it leaks, replace it with the Create a new address (the old one stops working) button; then remember to update the cron.

How do I know it is running

System status, row Background tasks: it is fine when the jobs ran within the last 30 minutes. A warning means that cron is not calling the address, or that nobody has visited the site.

You can also open the address in a browser – it responds with the line OK, the time and a list of what was done.

What exactly the jobs do

• publish scheduled articles and send their notifications (webhook, IndexNow for search engines, Web Push),
• create the automatic newsletter issue and send the next batch of a newsletter or Web Push notifications being delivered,
• retry sending mail that could not be delivered,
• look for broken links in published articles,
• twice a day check for updates and install security releases by themselves (if that is turned on),
• create the weekly database backup and upload it off-site, if that is turned on. The backup is created when cron is called or when an administrator enters the administration, not when a reader visits the site.

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