We have 2 method to set cron job -->

Method 1: Execute the script using php from the crontab

Just like how you call your shell script, use the php executable, and call the php script from your crontab as shown below.

To execute myscript.php every 1 hour do the following:

# crontab -e
00 * * * * /usr/local/bin/php /home/john/myscript.php

Method 2: Run the php script using URL from the crontab

If your php script can be invoked using an URL, you can lynx, or curl, or wget to setup your crontab as shown below.

The following script executes the php script (every hour) by calling the URL using the lynx text browser. Lynx text browser by default opens a URL in the interactive mode. However, as shown below, the -dump option in lynx command, dumps the output of the URL to the standard output.

00 * * * * lynx -dump http://www.thegeekstuff.com/myscript.php

The following script executes the php script (every 5 minutes) by calling the URL using CURL. Curl by default displays the output in the standard output. Using the curl -o option, you can also dump the output of your script to a temporary file as shown below.

*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/curl -o temp.txt http://www.thegeekstuff.com/myscript.php

The following script executes the php script (every 10 minutes) by calling the URL using WGET. The -q option indicates quite mode. The -O temp.txt indicates that the output will be send to the temporary file.

*/10 * * * * /usr/bin/wget -q -O temp.txt http://www.thegeekstuff.com/myscript.php