I am using Moodle 3.9 in a Digital Ocean's Ubuntu 20.04 server.
I am trying to set up the cron every minute, but I am not being successful. I used the web based cron script http://myurl.com/moodle/admin/cron.php
and it worked fine.
However, I use the command crontab -u www-data -e as root, and then I add * * * * * /usr/bin/php /opt/moodle/admin/cli/cron.php to the last line and saved, but it is not running as it should be.
Any advice? Thanks in advance.
Try running the cron script manually: at the command line try the command:
# sudo -u www-data /usr/bin/php /opt/moodle/admin/cli/cron.php
(If you need to, switch to root first so you get the # prompt with sudo su -).
Do you get output that looks correct or an error?
The error is saying it cannot open /opt/moodle/admin/cli/../../config.php, that is: /opt/moodle/config.php. Does this file exist?
If it doesn't then maybe /opt/moodle isn't the Moodle source code folder being used.
If it does then maybe your web server isn't running PHP scripts as www-data and www-data doesn't have access to see this file. Where is your site's Moodledata? This is specified in $CFG->dataroot in config.php. Find out which user owns muc/config.php in Moodledata (this is a different config.php to the one above!). For example if $CFG->dataroot is '/var/moodledata' run:
# ls -l /var/moodledata/muc/config.php
The owner of this file is probably the user to run cron as, with sudo -u user manually, or crontab -u user -e for the crontab.
Thanks a lot for your time, I really appreciate it and apologies for my lack of knowledge...!
* * * * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/moodle/admin/cli/cron.php > /dev/null
to crontab -u www-data -e.
The file we need to see in ls -lh /opt/moodle is config.php which isn't in that screenshot. Can you share that?
Since muc/config.php is owned by www-data, presumably that is the correct user. So I'm a bit puzzled as to how the web site could work as that user but the cron doesn't.
If there's no config.php then that's not your Moodle source code directory.
From this reply your Moodle source code directory is /var/www/html/moodle. So presumably the command for your cron should be: /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/moodle/admin/cli/cron.php.
In Moodle enable debugging under Site administration ▸ Development ▸ Debugging:
This should show more information with the error.
If you run /usr/bin/php -v what do you get?
Pardon intrusion ... been following this ... and know you've 2 persons with extensive knowledge of Moodle and are getting good advice ... but that advice is only as good as description of the problem! :|
So with that in mind (I might be way off, but ....)
in one screen shot I see the root prompt.
ubuntu-s-ivcpu-1gb-1on1-01
Those usually mean something ... 1 VCPU? 1 Gig Memory? 1on1-01 ... why would Digital Ocean have 1on1-01? Kinda looks like an old 1&1 hosting designation?
Yet you start the entire thread with
"Digital Ocean's Ubuntu 20.04 server"
Screen shot listing files for moodle shows no config.php file ...
thus setup of cron will fail - 100% of the time.
How did you acquire the moodle code?
/opt/moodle is a strange place for Ubuntu's 20.04 server!!!
Web server running?
ps aux |grep apache2
IF it is, then where is document root for the apache service?
find / -name apache2.conf
should show the main config file for apache's path.
Use the path in following command:
fgrep 'DocumentRoot' /path/to/apache2.conf
Am a CentOS person myself, but have been into Ubuntu boxen ... they are quite similar since they both are to supposed to be following Linux Standards Base (LSB) when it comes to web. Defining documentroot in the main config of the httpd/apache service is in both CentOS and Ubuntu server OS's.
'SoS', Ken