Can someone confirm this PHP cron job will run once a month on the 1st at 3am?

Question

0 3 1 * * /var/www/crons/monthly_billing.php 2>&1

Also anyone see any problems with it?

Answer 1

man 5 crontab says... yes. Looks good. The only problem may be if the script is not set executable or is missing the shebang line.

Answer 2

You might need to add the path to where php is running

0 3 1 * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/crons/monthly_billing.php 2>&1

Also where are you planning on sending the output result to the users local email address (e.g. jbloggs@localhost) which it would be doing at the moment or are you after redirecting it, into a log file.

NOTE: dont copy paste the example i have given here you might need to confirm the location of where the php binary file is on your server which php is your friend for this.

Answer 3

Also, following on Pauls notation regarding output result. If you don't want any output (discard all output, both stdout and stderr) try:

0 3 1 * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/crons/monthly_billing.php >> /dev/null 2>&1