Setup the Flarum scheduler using cron

clarkwinkelmann

HarishSarker if you run the command without the null redirect part (from cd [...] to [...] schedule:run) in a shell on the server, what is the output? To verify the paths and syntax are correct.

I don't know whether cPanel has a CRON log output? If not you could also try replacing the null redirect with a redirect to a temporary log file to try to get more information as to what happens when the CRON runs.

Is there really no username in the /home path? I'm not very familiar with cPanel, maybe the site domain acts as the username, or it's a linux distro where the home directory is not actually used like on other distros.

maxmoon

IanM * * * * * cd /path-to-your-project && php flarum schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

Is this still necessary or do extensions use another way to do their crons?

At least it looks like it's an old solution, because the admin panel doesn't show any info about the cronjob the admin has to create on the linux system and it can be activated without problems or any errors over the admin panel:

And even users can activate a cron without any problems/errors (without the cronjob above):

datitisev

maxmoon fof/drafts does use the Flarum scheduling system, which requires cron (or some other system) to be set up to run the schedule:run command. Clarification on these settings would probably be helpful to have in the extension's settings.

The admin settings not erroring is because they're simply setting values in the DB, which are used when determining whether to run a job or not in the scheduler.

The draft autosave is done on the client side (i.e. browser) and so has nothing to do with cron.

maxmoon

datitisev fof/drafts does use the Flarum scheduling system, which requires cron (or some other system) to be set up to run the schedule:run command.

datitisev The draft autosave is done on the client side (i.e. browser) and so has nothing to do with cron.

What exactly does drafts do in the background (on the server side) if drafts autosave is controlled by the client?

Will it be enough to trigger the scheduler every 3 hours, because every minute sounds a little bit like an overkill to me?

* */3 * * * cd /path-to-your-project && php flarum schedule:run

datitisev

maxmoon That would be publishing scheduled drafts once their time has arrived.

You should keep the cron job running every minute. The schedule:run command already handles how often the registered schedules by extensions are ran - for example, drafts does have its schedule run every minute, but all it does is retrieve the drafts whose scheduled time has passed, publishes them, and deletes the draft.

Other extensions may have stuff configured for other intervals. The schedule:run command takes care of that for you, alongside the extension's code. For example, fof/open-collective has its command run every hour instead.

maxmoon

datitisev drafts does have its schedule run every minute

Okay, I understand what those scheduled drafts are, now. I am not a fan of it and will deactivate them again and I don't understand why something like this should be useful in a discussion forum? And in many cases, if I don't understand something, I ban it from my life... or at least from my forum.

Thanks for the good explanation and help 🙂

IanM
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Are there other things Flarum does with the cronjob, except of the extensions listed above? Like time based suspension of users?

clarkwinkelmann

maxmoon time based suspension of users

This features does not use the scheduler, the date of suspension end is simply checked every time the user tries to perform an action.

If you are trying to list every extension that uses a scheduled command, there's at least one more, my Popular Discussion Badge extension https://discuss.flarum.org/d/24490-popular-discussion-badge but it's an optional feature.

xasharma

IanM $ crontab -e

When i did this it showed this - https://prnt.sc/TVBkjROQ9b-u

IanM * * * * * cd /path-to-your-project && php flarum schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

When i did this it showed this - bash: ads: command not found

so i run this command -

IanM cd /path-to-your-project && php flarum schedule:run simply says php flarum ......

It showed this - No scheduled commands are ready to run.

https://prnt.sc/PsjPcu_iPnGM

xasharma

xasharma Hey @IanM @everyone_ ... Help

xasharma

HD3D

IanM Do we still need to run it if we have redis and Redis sessions, cache & queues Installed?

luceos

HD3D yes, the scheduler is an independent functionality to the queue. If any extensions are using the scheduler, it should be set up to run.

Prcek

xasharma

If you're having trouble configuring a cronjob, you can use systemd.timer, which is a bit more straightforward, or use a looping script:

#!/bin/bash
while true; do
    cd <path_to_flarum_dir> && php flarum schedule:run
    sleep 60
done

Ideally in a container.

xasharma

Prcek Sorry I am begineer , Please guide, I am using cpnael.

Prcek

xasharma I'm sorry, but I don't use cPanel. I'm more old school Unix. CLI and all that 😄 But I'm sure the cPanel pros will get it together somehow 👷🏻‍♂️

Prcek

By the way, I see that cPanel has a nice GUI for cron jobs. So it can't be a problem to click it.

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/cpanel/cpanel_cron_jobs.htm

xasharma

Prcek Thanks for the help

cmsoc

We are trying to create a php file that cron can execute. The php file contains:

<?php
flarum schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1;
?>

But it does not work when trying to execute this. There is a parse error. Any help is appreciated 🙂

clarkwinkelmann

cmsoc you are confusing shell commands and PHP code.

The Flarum scheduler is only meant to be called directly from the CRON configuration. If you need to call a Flarum command from another PHP script you need to either start it as a shell subprocess or import, boot Flarum code then create and dispatch the Symfony command in application.

If you are trying to work around some limitation by your host, please describe your situation in more details so we can understand what you are trying to do.

cmsoc

clarkwinkelmann I am using Cloudways and they support executing a Cron schedule to run a PHP file. So, I am entering the required command in a PHP file and passing that file as the input to run via Cron.

ctml

cmsoc

flarum is the php cmd you want to run, so you could point to it directly however I think when it comes to the scheduler there is a limitation where it must be executed from the directory where flarum resides which may or may not be an issue for your host.

So you could try pointing it directly at flarum, which is a php file itself

$ head flarum
#!/usr/bin/env php
<?php

/*
 * This file is part of Flarum.
 *
 * For detailed copyright and license information, please view the
 * LICENSE file that was distributed with this source code.
 */

Scheduled command: flarum schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

But if that doesn't work, you could try the shell_exec method from your own php script.

https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.shell-exec.php

<?php
$output = shell_exec('cd /path/to/directory && flarum schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1');
?>

cmsoc

ctml Thank you. Let me try and get back to you.

Update: It worked fine 👍️

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