From the shell you can use programs like wget and curl to access a remote script, however the same commands would fail when added to crontab. Here are my tips to get them to work:
- Include the path to the executable i.e. /usr/local/bin/wget
- Use the quiet/silent option when possible
- If the URL you wish to use includes parameters (?var=value) enclose the URL in double or single quotes
- Redirect output to a log file to verify operation
Here is how to use both wget and curl within crontab:
# run every five minutes */5 * * * * /usr/local/bin/wget -qO /var/log/cron.wget.log "https://reubencrane.com/script.php?var=value" # run on the hour 0 * * * * /usr/local/bin/curl -s "https://reubencrane.com/script.php?var=value" > /var/log/cron.curl.log
