Cronie Setup in Arch Linux - archlinux

Question

Here is my working crontab on debian, it runs every 5 minutes.
*/05 * * * * user /usr/bin/php /var/www/monitoring/cron/status.cron.php
I'm able to execute the script status.cron.php in my browser or php cli, the script works as intended.
Now I was forced to run the same script in Arch Linux, the thing is, Arch make use of systemd/timers and I am not used to it, then I heard about cronie and decided to give a shot, here is what I got so far:
cronie was installed and is runing, see:
● cronie.service - Periodic Command Scheduler
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/cronie.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: active (running) since Mon 2019-12-23 00:40:31 +07; 1 months 1 days ago
Main PID: 631 (crond)
Tasks: 1 (limit: 4620)
Memory: 5.4M
CGroup: /system.slice/cronie.service
└─631 /usr/bin/crond -n
Jan 24 00:41:01 user-pc CROND[31933]: (root) CMD (run-parts /etc/cron.minutely #Runs a cron job script every minute)
created a file called monitoring in /etc/cron.d directory
here is the file:
SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
MAILTO=root
*/1 * * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.minutely #Runs a cron job script every minute
01 * * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.hourly #Runs a cron job script every hour
02 4 * * * root run-parts /etc/cron.daily #Runs a cron job script every day
22 4 * * 0 root run-parts /etc/cron.weekly #Runs a cron job script every week
42 4 1 * * root run-parts /etc/cron.monthly #Runs a cron job script every month
created a new directory called cron.minutely in /etc/, then created a new file called monstatuscron in it, here is the file:
#!/usr/bin/php
#*/01 * * * * user /usr/bin/php /var/www/monitoring/cron/status.cron.php
#/usr/bin/php /var/www/monitoring/cron/status.cron.php
/usr/bin/php /var/www/monitoring/cron/status.cron.php
I guess this file should be an script as it says it Arch docs, but what type of script? shell script with instruction to run my php script? or what else?
I commented the two lines right below #!/usr/bin/php cause it didn't work. I got stuck at this point.
I also run the command journalctl -xb -u cronie to check if the job is running and I got a lot of entries like this one:
Jan 24 00:58:01 user-pc CROND[32175]: (root) CMD (run-parts /etc/cron.minutely #Runs a cron job script every minute)
It seems to be running as intended.
Appreciate Any help on this one.

Answer 1

The shebang shouldn't be #!/usr/bin/php, but #!/usr/bin/env bash or #!/bin/bash. That is because Bash is the default shell for ArchLinux - and that is a shell script, calling a PHP script. Also make sure to chmod +x cron.minutely/*.sh, so that it can be executed. There's no need to put PHP-CLI scripts into /var/www, because they can run everywhere (there they could eventually be run via the PHP-SAPI and expose sensitive information).