Cron

The Moodle 'cron' process is a script that runs in the background performing vital tasks at regular intervals (e.g. sending mail). The name comes from the Unix program that normally manages these tasks.

IMPORTANT: Do not skip setting up the cron process for your Moodle. Your site will not work properly without it

Contents 1 Setting up cron on your system 1.1 Cron settings in Moodle 1.2 Remote cron 2 See also

Setting up cron on your system

Choose the information for your server type:

• Cron with Unix or Linux- Cron services on various UNIX and Linux flavored operating systems.
• Cron with Windows OS - Cron services in Windows
• Apple OSX - use the built-in 'crontab' service which is exactly the same as Cron with Unix or Linux. However, you might want to do it the 'Apple way' using launchd - see Cron with MAC OS X
• Cron with web hosting services- Cron services in various web hosting examples.

Cron settings in Moodle

There are settings within Moodle that control aspects of cron operation:

• Cron settings - Moodle cron process password and CLI settings

Remote cron

Using the 'web based' version of cron it is perfectly ok to place the cron process on a different machine to the Moodle server. For example, the cron service on a Unix server can invoke the cron web 'page' on a Windows based Moodle server.

See also

Using Moodle forum discussions:

• Cron - can someone give me a quick confirmation of function?
• Cronjob Question
• Slow cron : avoiding simultaneous cron
• Visibility of cron.php
• How to log the output of a Scheduled Task on Windows - this discussion explains a nice trick that can be very useful when you are experiencing problems with your Windows Scheduled Task and you need to log the output of the Scheduled Task to a log file.