How to Configure Cron Jobs

Knowledgebase Article

How to Configure Cron Jobs

Recommended for Advanced Users Only

What is cron?

Cron is a Unix utility installed on our servers which can be used to schedule commands for automatic execution at times you specify. For example, you might have a script within your account that produces invoices, which you would like to execute once per day at 2am.

How do I configure my cron jobs?

Your control panel allows you to configure the cron jobs defined for your account. You can access your control panel by visiting http://www.yourdomain.ext/cpanel, replacing yourdomain.ext with the domain name you host with us.

Once logged in, in the 'Advanced' section, select the "Cron jobs" link.

We advise clients to use the 'Standard' configuration editor unless they are experienced with Unix crontab syntax, in which case the 'Advanced' may be more familiar. Note that any times specified are executed in the timezone of the server, and not your local timezone. Accordingly, you may need to make allowance for this when selecting when to run your cron job. Our servers run in the 'UTC' timezone because our client base is global, and it remains constant throughout the year with no changes for daylight saving. You can find out the current time in UTC by clicking here.

We require that all clients to utilize the 'nice' command within Unix to lower the resource utilization impact on the server and preserve resources for other users. To do this, simply prefix your cron command with the following:

/usr/bin/nice -n 15

For example, to execute your invoicing script you might use:

/usr/bin/nice -n 15 /usr/local/bin/php /usr/home/USERNAME/billing_program/run_invoices.php