You need to have cron (or other software which allows to run a program every 5-10-15 minutes) anywhere on the computer which has access to your moodle web server.
The computer with cron must run the following command:
wget -O /dev/null "http://your.moodle.server/path/to/moodle/admin/cron.php"
every 5 minutes.
The 'cron' (or similar) service doesn't need to run on your host. It simply needs to run on any computer which can (i) schedule tasks at pre-defined times - in the case of Moodle every 10 minutes is a good starting point and (ii) access a remote web page on your server.
You then use the program to regularly run a program which visits the appropriate server web page, which will in turn trigger routine / houskeeping tasks.
If you have access to such a computer running Linux or some other flavour of Unix you can use the standard Unix 'cron' command to specify that the program 'wget' is run every 10 minutes. 'wget' is short for 'web get' and simply requests a web page, triggering the housekeeping activity. cron lets you specify the frequency and wget lets you specify the page. Both cron and wget are described in standard Unix / Linux documentation.
If you have access to such a computer running Windows you can use the 'Moodlecron' program. This can run as a Windows service and allows you to specify both the frequency and web address. Moodlecron is described somewhere on this site and in the documentation if you do a search... can't remember where off the top of my head.
(You should be able to do something similar to Moodlecron using the standard Windows task manager and a suitable web-page-visiting program. I haven't tried this, but the principle's straightforward).
Hope that helps.
Andrew.
You then use the program to regularly run a program which visits the appropriate server web page, which will in turn trigger routine / houskeeping tasks.
If you have access to such a computer running Linux or some other flavour of Unix you can use the standard Unix 'cron' command to specify that the program 'wget' is run every 10 minutes. 'wget' is short for 'web get' and simply requests a web page, triggering the housekeeping activity. cron lets you specify the frequency and wget lets you specify the page. Both cron and wget are described in standard Unix / Linux documentation.
If you have access to such a computer running Windows you can use the 'Moodlecron' program. This can run as a Windows service and allows you to specify both the frequency and web address. Moodlecron is described somewhere on this site and in the documentation if you do a search... can't remember where off the top of my head.
(You should be able to do something similar to Moodlecron using the standard Windows task manager and a suitable web-page-visiting program. I haven't tried this, but the principle's straightforward).
Hope that helps.
Andrew.
Thanks, I have downloaded the Windows cron software, but this assumes that my Windows machine is permanently switched on and connected I guess, which is not the case.
I've just uploaded a program I've written which should run cron jobs from any Windows PC on a schedule. The zip file is in this post - http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=38397&parent=191159
Hope this helps
Chris
GoDaddy doesn't offer a cron service either. I think you're in the same boat I was and I didn't trust a windows machine to be on 24/7. So, I outsourced!!
Web based cron (http://webbasedcron.com/) will do up to 5 cron jobs for $14.95 a year. Each cron can run up as many times as you like. Works for me!!
Web based cron (http://webbasedcron.com/) will do up to 5 cron jobs for $14.95 a year. Each cron can run up as many times as you like. Works for me!!
Thanks for that. Seems just what I need
Hi Bill,
I have been using for a while, and with total success, a web based Cron on http://www.webcron.org/
It is free, has a few useful features, but unfortunately in French, which is absolutely not a problem to run cron jobs, or any other repetitive jobs.
Hope this will be useful for you or anybody else.
Cheers,
I have been using for a while, and with total success, a web based Cron on http://www.webcron.org/
It is free, has a few useful features, but unfortunately in French, which is absolutely not a problem to run cron jobs, or any other repetitive jobs.
Hope this will be useful for you or anybody else.
Cheers,