Setting up cron jobs

Cron jobs run scheduled commands on your hosting account — a script every hour, a backup every night, an email queue every five minutes. Set them up from the portal in a couple of clicks.

Create a cron job

1. Go to Services → click your hosting → Cron tile.
2. Click Create cron job.
3. Enter:
   • Schedule — pick a preset (every hour, every day, etc.) or enter cron syntax directly.
   • Command — the command to run.
4. Save.

The job runs at the scheduled times. There's no "start" step — once saved, it's active.

Cron syntax

Cron uses 5 fields: minute, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of-week.

* * * * * command
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ └─ day of week (0–6, Sunday is 0)
│ │ │ └─── month (1–12)
│ │ └───── day of month (1–31)
│ └─────── hour (0–23)
└───────── minute (0–59)

Common patterns:

• 0 * * * * — every hour, on the hour.
• */5 * * * * — every 5 minutes.
• 0 2 * * * — every day at 2:00 AM.
• 0 3 * * 0 — every Sunday at 3:00 AM.
• 0 0 1 * * — first of every month at midnight.
• 0 9-17 * * 1-5 — every hour from 9 AM to 5 PM, Monday to Friday.

The portal's preset picker handles the common cases. For unusual schedules, write the cron syntax directly.

Common commands

WordPress

WordPress has a built-in scheduler (wp-cron) but it runs on page load, which is unreliable for low-traffic sites. Better to disable that and schedule via real cron:

In wp-config.php:

define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);

Then add a cron job:

*/15 * * * * /usr/local/bin/php /home/your-user/public_html/wp-cron.php > /dev/null 2>&1

This runs WordPress's scheduler every 15 minutes — reliable regardless of traffic.

Custom PHP scripts

0 * * * * /usr/local/bin/php /home/your-user/public_html/scripts/hourly-task.php

Shell scripts

Make sure the script has executable permissions (755):

0 2 * * * /home/your-user/scripts/nightly-backup.sh

Curl-based jobs (hitting URLs)

*/5 * * * * curl -s https://yourdomain.com/api/check-queue.php > /dev/null

Useful for triggering web-accessible endpoints.

Suppressing email

By default, cron emails its output to your account email every time a job runs. For frequent jobs, this fills your inbox.

To suppress: redirect output to /dev/null:

*/5 * * * * /usr/local/bin/php /home/your-user/script.php > /dev/null 2>&1

> /dev/null discards stdout. 2>&1 redirects stderr to stdout (which is now /dev/null). The job runs silently.

Limits

Most shared plans cap cron frequency at a minimum of 5 minutes between runs (no * * * * * every-minute jobs). Some specialty plans allow per-minute cron.

For per-minute or sub-minute scheduling, you'll need a VPS or dedicated server.

When cron jobs go wrong

• Job doesn't run — check the cron syntax. The "schedule" field in the portal validates syntax; the command field doesn't. Common mistake: using shell variables ($HOME) that don't expand in cron's environment.
• Command not found — use absolute paths to executables (/usr/local/bin/php, not just php).
• Permission denied — make sure the script is executable: chmod +x /home/your-user/script.sh.
• Email flood — add > /dev/null 2>&1 to the command.
• Job hangs — set a timeout: timeout 60 /path/to/command will kill the process after 60 seconds.

Listing and removing

The Cron tile shows all your active jobs with their schedules and last run time. Click a job to edit; trash icon to remove.

Removed jobs stop running immediately. In-flight executions complete normally.