Cron job issue

running long duration php script as cron job

[pushpendragold]

Hi all,

I am required to run some calculation script on my server which takes more then 4 hours to execute. When I set cron job using wget it creates multiple instances of same process, which overloads server and site stops working. I don't know what to do

please help.
Thanks

[physics]

How often do you need the job to run?

[pushpendragold]

requires daily.

[physics]

If it takes 4 hours to run and you want it to run daily then you shouldn't be having a problem.
Maybe your cron syntax is wrong - can you post it here?

[pushpendragold]

here is crontab code
5 0 * * * /usr/bin/wget

http://www.mydomain.com/do-calculation.php

[g1smd]

Does the script have to run over HTTP?

I use something like:

30 3 * * * /usr/bin/[b]php[/b] [b]/var/www/[/b]example.com/cron/script.php [b]>>[/b] /home/username/logs/cronlog.log

to run scripts internally (and log some output).

[physics]

Does the server get overloaded right away or only after a few days of this running?

[pushpendragold]

the server get overloaded after 15 to 20 mins. To check multiple instances I placed mail sending code in cronjob.php and I received nearly 20 mails which shows that at least 20 instances of same cron job was running.
So currently I am manually doing this task every day :(.

[physics]

Is it possible that the script is calling itself? This is really strange. It's either a bug in your cron daemon (very unlikely) or a bug in your script.
Have you checked /var/log/cron?

[pushpendragold]

Hi physics thnax for understanding my problem.
Script is fine as opening cron job URL manually does not overload server.
Is there any timeout thing in crontab or may be in wget which occurred and cause recalling of URL?