When you do a web search for cron and PHP, you always find how to run PHP from cron, but there’s no info what-so-ever on how to set cron from PHP.
Doing BH means dealing with a lot of automated tasks. Automation on PHP means cron: crons that run scripts that do web spidering, process data, scrap content, auto post, you name it.
Doing REAL BH, requires more complex scripting: scripts that dynamically change the cron: that’s to say change the cron table according to external conditions, found by the script itself.
It’s not rocket science, and you only need to know two things:
- 1.To format a classical unix timestamp to cron, you need to use this:
$cron_formated_date = date("i H d m *", $timestamp); - 2.To set a cron from PHP, you need to write the above + the command to call to a text file and call
shell_exec ("crontab /home/user/mycronfile.txt");
Knowing those two tricks, you’re free to create anything.
Adding a new line to your actual cron table
$comandstring = $cron_formated_date." /usr/local/php5/bin/php /home/user/myphpscript.php > /home/user/myphpscriptoutput.txt 2>&1";
$actualcron = shell_exec ("crontab -l");
$newcron = $actualcron."$comandstring\n";
$f = fopen ("mycronjobtemp.txt","w");
fwrite($f, $newcron);
fclose($f);
shell_exec ("crontab /hone/user/mycronjobtemp.txt");
How do I delay my cron 15 minutes?
$temp_cron_date = date("Y-m-d H:i:s", $timestamp);
$new_cron_formated_date = date("i H d m * ", (strtotime("+15 min", strtotime($temp_cron_date))));
How do I list my cron table?
shell_exec ("crontab -l");
How do I clear my cron table?
shell_exec ("crontab -r");
How do I reset my cron table?
Save the crons you always run to a txt file and load that file to the cron table to reset it.
How do I create random crons?
I leave that to you.
Why are random crons very important?
- 1. Because Google is smarter than ever and will detect your auto content feeding pattern. (Unless you make a clever use of WP and postpone your posts on a random base)
- 2. Feeds where you’re getting the content from detect your pattern and ban your IP. It has happened to me reading RSS feeds from major newspapers.