cPanel provides two interfaces that simplify setting up a cron job. This post discusses the “standard” interface because most people find it easier and faster to use than the advanced interface.

Two common problems people often encounter with cron jobs :

1. a server uses “military” time or a 24-hour clock rather than a 12-hour clock. For example, 1:00 pm would be 13:00
2. your server’s time zone might be different than your own. For example, your server is in Atlanta, Georgia and you live in Sacramento, California, “your” time is 3 hours different than the server’s time for running the cron job. Remember this when you check to see that your cron job ran and find unexpected results (such as it did not run because the time has not been reached, or you think it ran early and it should not have run).
Now, let’s set up a cron job. First, where cPanel asks you to enter an email address where the output will be sent. The server will send you an email with the results of the cron job. It could provide helpful info such as an error encountered, so be sure to enter a valid email address relevant to your cron job.

Next, enter the command to run. This can be a simple Linux command, a PHP script, and many more. A previous post discussed examples of cron jobs that could be run. An example of a simple Linux command that deletes (rm) all files in a directory for temporary files could look like this: rm /home/username/public_html/tmp/*

The rest of the cPanel interface sets when to run the cron job and how often to run it. The settings appear complex at first, but they are not really difficult to learn. We discuss this in a future post about cron jobs.

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