Setting up the cron job¶

Choosing a frequency¶

Whatever system the Scheduler will run on, the first step is to define the frequency at which it should run. The Scheduler script should set up to run pretty often, but not unnecessarily often either. The frequency should be that of the most often running task or some frequency that fits all tasks.

For example, if you have some tasks running every quarter of an hour and some others running every hour, it is useless to have the Scheduler run every 5 minutes. On the other hand, if you have tasks scheduled to run every 10 minutes and others every 15 minutes, you will want to run the Scheduler every 5 minutes. Indeed, if you run it only at 10-minute intervals, it will run – assuming it is 8 o'clock – at 08:10, 08:20, 08:30, etc. So the tasks that should run at 08:15 will actually run 5 minutes late.

On Unix and Mac OS X¶

On such systems the Scheduler must be set up as a cron job. There are several ways to achieve this, although the simplest is probably to add it to some user's crontab. Edit that user's crontab using:

crontab -e

and add a line like

*/15 * * * * /usr/local/bin/php /home/user/www/vendor/bin/typo3 scheduler:run

*/15 * * * * /usr/local/bin/php /home/user/www/typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3 scheduler:run

Save the modified crontab. Obviously, the paths have to be adapted to your system. The above command will call up the Scheduler every 15 minutes.

If you are editing system crontabs (for example /etc/crontab and /etc/cron.d/* ), there will be one additional parameter to enter, i.e. the user with which the job should run. Example:

*/15 * * * * www /usr/local/bin/php /home/user/www/vendor/bin/typo3 scheduler:run

*/15 * * * * www /usr/local/bin/php /home/user/www/typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3 scheduler:run

This will run the job as user "www".

If you are not familiar with cron syntax, refer to some Unix administration book or start with the Wikipedia page about it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron).

On Windows¶

On Windows, cron jobs are called "Scheduled tasks" and run with the schtasks utility. SchTasks.exe performs operations similar to those provided by Scheduled Tasks in the Control Panel. You can use either tool to create, delete, configure, or simply display scheduled tasks.

Assuming you want to run the TYPO3 Scheduler every 15 minutes, use the following command line to create a new task:

schtasks /create /sc minute /mo 15 /tn "T3scheduler" /tr "c:\winstaller\php\php.exe c:\winstaller\htdocs\quickstart\vendor\bin\typo3 scheduler:run"

schtasks /create /sc minute /mo 15 /tn "T3scheduler" /tr "c:\winstaller\php\php.exe c:\winstaller\htdocs\quickstart\typo3/sysext/core/bin/typo3 scheduler:run"

At task creation you will be prompted to give a password or you can use the /u and /p switches to provide user and password information. Note that the user must be a member of the Administrators group on the computer where the command will run.

The full reference for schtasks is available at: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/schtasks