no crontab

Hi,

I just installed elgg on a server that doesn't allow cron jobs.  Is there an alternative way to provide the function?

  • My server hoster does allow "scheduled jobs" where I can have php scripts run as often as every 15 minutes. So I need to somehow rewrite the crontab example as a series of php scripts.  But I'm not knowledgeable enough in cron jobs to know how.  Any help would be appreciated

  • @MM:

    Elgg's CRON PlugIn is very vewy different from real CRON - cain't compare for zilch ;-)

    CRON (Linux stuff) where PHP scripts are triggered frm the CRONTAB need somewhat special technical attention because PHP scripts (CLI) that will run via CRON is quite not the same as PHP that runs via normal browser.

    Help in this arena is kinda not exactly viable because there's some bit of techie programming stuff to be coded and well understood.. not for newbies and also will take some effort. There's too much to cover..

  • So are you saying that elgg's cron doesn't need the real cron?

  • http://docs.elgg.org/wiki/Crontrigger

    How exactly the cronjobs/crontrigger works - and if both are necessary at the same time or if the crontrigger plugin should be disabled when cronjobs are defined - is also a mystery to me...

    I have some trouble with logrotate/garbagecollector (both set to weekly) running twice per week and only 1 intervall seems triggered by crond. I've not yet found out if the other execution is triggered by crontrigger or if maybe the other run is also started by crond and just not logged in the server log.

    You might find the croncheck plugin useful while experimenting with the cronjobs/scheduled jobs: http://community.elgg.org/pg/plugins/project/484590/developer/jdalsem/croncheck

  • @All =>

    Some clarifications ;-)

    CRON is the real Linux OS stuff for scheduling tasks at timed intervals.

    Elgg's Poor Man's Cron (the PlugIn called "crontrigger") is an *emulation for real CRON and driven by any page of the actual website being loaded/ viewed by some/any web user hitting the website and *not by any system/ server magic.

    If one is using Linux CRON/CRONTab (for those that know how to handle this) - there is no need for the Elgg CronTrigger PlugIn.

    CROND - the Linux CRON daemon - has got no connections whatever at all with the Elgg CronTrigger PlugIn. The Elgg PlugIn does not log anything in te server logs (Jeroen's PlugIn CronCheck covers this area).

    So let us spaek the right language ->

    • CRON is the Linux thingy - somewhat more synapses needed to make this work;)
    • CronTrigger PlugIn is the Elgg thingy a little less effort here;-P

     

     

  • Thanks kindly for the explanation.