How to kill the php page ran via Cron if it is still executing

Question

I don't know whether this is right place to post this, if not please bear with me.

I have CRON that executes PHP page at 03:00 am.

This php page, goes through several data, that it takes an average 1 hour to complete, or sometimes even little more.

Problem

For some reason I don't want this cron (php page) to take more than 1 hour to process what it has made for.

So, How to kill if that page is still executing at 04:05 am.

Thanks

Does this answer your question? Can I limit the runtime of a cronjob — Michael Hampton, Oct 4 '20 at 13:42

Lukas Räpple · Accepted Answer · 2020-10-04 07:51:02Z

3

You can achieve this kind of behavior with the timeout command.

Below is an example Configuration that kills the process if it runs longer than one hour:

* * * * * /bin/timeout -s 2 3600 /path/to/your/script.sh

-s 2 is the Signal to send to the process. 2 is the SIGINT Signal

10 is the time frame in which the process should have finished.

This Serverfault question seems very alike to your question, check it out: Can I limit the runtime of a cronjob

answered Oct 4 '20 at 7:39

Lukas Räpple

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Thanks for the reply. So timeout is in seconds right? and -s 2 , I don't need to change this right? – WatsMyName Oct 4 '20 at 8:17
Yeah. You just need to change it if you want to send another signal. But this should kill your cronjob. Give feedback if it worked out for you :) – Lukas Räpple Oct 4 '20 at 8:43
15 09 * * * /bin/timeout -s 2 120 php7.2 /project/cronfiles/cli.php TimeoutTask main this is my cron, but doesn't seem to be executing. Anything wrong? – WatsMyName Oct 4 '20 at 9:28
does this command work on the command line outside of crontab? you have timeout installed right? Try running it on the command, if possible and check if an error occurs. – Lukas Räpple Oct 4 '20 at 9:41
I found out the issue with timeout path, it should be /usr/bin/timeout – WatsMyName Oct 4 '20 at 10:33

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