<-My Blog->

Laravel's scheduler feature provides a convenient way to manage scheduled tasks for our web application. In this article, we will implement cronjob in laravel step by step.

1. Let's create a new laravel project.

composer create-project laravel/laravel laravel-cron

2. We need to create a console command. Laravel scheduler will execute these console commands based on the frequency.

php artisan make:command WeeklyNewsletter

This will create WeeklyNewsletter.php file inside app/Console/Commands directory.

3. Open WeeklyNewsletter.php and update command signature and description. also, update the handle() method.

<?php

namespace App\Console\Commands;

use Illuminate\Console\Command;

class WeeklyNewsletter extends Command
{
    /**
     * The name and signature of the console command.
     *
     * @var string
     */
    protected $signature = 'weekly:newsletter';

    /**
     * The console command description.
     *
     * @var string
     */
    protected $description = 'Send Weekly Newsletter to Users';

    /**
     * Create a new command instance.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function __construct()
    {
        parent::__construct();
    }

    /**
     * Execute the console command.
     *
     * @return int
     */
    public function handle()
    {
        // Email Code Here
        $this->log('Weekly newsletter sent successfully.');
    }
}

4. Next we need to register our command. Open app/Console/Kernel.php. Here we need to call command() method by passing the console command signature also chained the frequency.

Note:- From Laravel v8.6.8 protected $commands property removed. so if you are using laravel version > v8.6.8 then you don't need to define $commands property. 

Ref:- https://github.com/laravel/laravel/pull/5727

<?php

namespace App\Console;

use App\Console\Commands\WeeklyNewsletter;
use Illuminate\Console\Scheduling\Schedule;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Console\Kernel as ConsoleKernel;

class Kernel extends ConsoleKernel
{
    protected $commands = [
        WeeklyNewsletter::class
    ];
    /**
     * Define the application's command schedule.
     *
     * @param  \Illuminate\Console\Scheduling\Schedule  $schedule
     * @return void
     */
    protected function schedule(Schedule $schedule)
    {
        $schedule->command('weekly:newsletter')->weekly();
    }

    /**
     * Register the commands for the application.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    protected function commands()
    {
        $this->load(__DIR__.'/Commands');

        require base_path('routes/console.php');
    }
}

Here are some inbuilt frequency functions for task scheduling. Checkout all functions:- https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/scheduling

Method	Description
->cron('* * * * *');	Run the task on a custom cron schedule
->everyMinute();	Run the task every minute
->everyTwoMinutes();	Run the task every two minutes
->everyThreeMinutes();	Run the task every three minutes
->everyFourMinutes();	Run the task every four minutes
->everyFiveMinutes();	Run the task every five minutes
->everyTenMinutes();	Run the task every ten minutes
->everyFifteenMinutes();	Run the task every fifteen minutes
->everyThirtyMinutes();	Run the task every thirty minutes
->hourly();	Run the task every hour
->hourlyAt(17);	Run the task every hour at 17 minutes past the hour
->everyTwoHours();	Run the task every two hours
->everyThreeHours();	Run the task every three hours
->everyFourHours();	Run the task every four hours
->everySixHours();	Run the task every six hours
->daily();	Run the task every day at midnight
->dailyAt('13:00');	Run the task every day at 13:00
->twiceDaily(1, 13);	Run the task daily at 1:00 & 13:00
->weekly();	Run the task every Sunday at 00:00
->weeklyOn(1, '8:00');	Run the task every week on Monday at 8:00
->monthly();	Run the task on the first day of every month at 00:00
->monthlyOn(4, '15:00');	Run the task every month on the 4th at 15:00
->twiceMonthly(1, 16, '13:00');	Run the task monthly on the 1st and 16th at 13:00
->lastDayOfMonth('15:00');	Run the task on the last day of the month at 15:00
->quarterly();	Run the task on the first day of every quarter at 00:00
->yearly();	Run the task on the first day of every year at 00:00
->yearlyOn(6, 1, '17:00');	Run the task every year on June 1st at 17:00
->timezone('America/New_York');	Set the timezone for the task

In case you are facing any problem with setting cron patterns you can checkout Crontab.guru - The cron schedule expression editor

Note:- You can also use the callback method if you don't want to create custom commands.

protected function schedule(Schedule $schedule)
{ 
    $schedule->call(function () {
        // Email Code Here
        $this->info('Weekly newsletter sent successfully.');
    })->weekly();
}

You can also use chaining.

protected function schedule(Schedule $schedule)
{ 
    $schedule->call(function () {
        // Email Code Here
        $this->info('Weekly newsletter sent successfully.');
    })->weekly()->sundays()->at('13:00');
}

5. If you want to test your console command on your local machine you can use three commands.

(a). Using signature

php artisan weekly:newsletter

(b). Using scheduler run

php artisan schedule:run

(c). Using scheduler worker

php artisan schedule:work

6. Finally we need to add our scheduler in the crontab of our server. so enter this command.

sudo crontab -e

and make changes like this.

# m h  dom mon dow   command 
* * * * * php /path/to/artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1
OR
* * * * * cd /path/to/project && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

In my case

# m h  dom mon dow   command
* * * * * cd /var/www/laravel-cron && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

You can check the crontab by hitting

sudo crontab -l

If you facing any issues. don't hesitate to comment below. I will be happy to help you.