Guide CyberPanel Cron Jobs: Add a Cron Job and Replace WP-Cron With a Real One

Guide CyberPanel Cron Jobs: Add a Cron Job and Replace WP-Cron With a Real One - Printable Version

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CyberPanel Cron Jobs: Add a Cron Job and Replace WP-Cron With a Real One - JAY - 10-26-2026

CyberPanel Cron Jobs: Add a Cron Job and Replace WP-Cron With a Real One

A cron job runs a command on a schedule: a backup script every night, a Laravel scheduler every minute, a WordPress task runner every five minutes. CyberPanel has a page for this per website, so you don't need to open crontab by hand. Below we add a real job on our test site and use it for the most common case: replacing WordPress's built-in WP-Cron.

Where to find it
Open Websites > List Websites, click Manage on your site and find Cron Jobs. The direct address is:

Code:

https://YOUR-SERVER-IP:8090/websites/listCron?domain=yourdomain.com

Each website has its own list. The jobs run as that website's Linux user (ours is

Code:

cyber2602

), not as root. That's good for security, and it means the files your job creates belong to the site, so WordPress can still edit them.

Step 1: Fill in the schedule
The Pre defined dropdown fills the five time fields for you: every minute, every 5 minutes, every 30 minutes, every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year. Pick one, or type your own values:

Minute 0-59, Hour 0-23, Day of month 1-31, Month 1-12, Day of week 0-6 (0 = Sunday).
Code:
*
means "every".
Code:
*/5
means "every 5th".
Code:
1,15
is a list,
Code:
1-5
is a range.
Examples:
Code:
0 3 * * *
= 03:00 every day.
Code:
30 2 * * 0
= 02:30 every Sunday.
Code:
0 */6 * * *
= every 6 hours.

The time is the server's time zone. Check it with

Code:

timedatectl

; ours was UTC.

Step 2: The command (use the full PHP path)
Here is the form filled in for WordPress, with the Every 5 minutes preset:
[Image: attachment.php?aid=488]

The field hint says

Code:

/usr/bin/php /path/to/script.php

. On our server

Code:

/usr/bin/php

is a link to PHP 8.3:

Code:

ls -l /usr/bin/php
/usr/bin/php -> /usr/local/lsws/lsphp83/bin/php

That's fine until your site uses a different PHP version than the server default. To be sure the job runs with the same PHP as the website, write the full path of that version:

Code:

/usr/local/lsws/lsphp81/bin/php

Code:

/usr/local/lsws/lsphp82/bin/php

Code:

/usr/local/lsws/lsphp83/bin/php

and so on. See which ones you have with

Code:

ls /usr/local/lsws/ | grep lsphp

.

Our WordPress command:

Code:

/usr/local/lsws/lsphp83/bin/php /home/cyber.adminslab.com/public_html/wp-cron.php >/dev/null 2>&1

Code:

>/dev/null 2>&1

throws the output away. Without it, cron tries to email the output to the site user every run.

Step 3: Save and check
Click Add Cron, then Fetch Current Cron Jobs. The new job shows up with edit and delete buttons:
[Image: attachment.php?aid=489]

CyberPanel writes the job into the site user's crontab. You can see the same thing from SSH:

Code:

crontab -u cyber2602 -l
*/5 * * * * /usr/local/lsws/lsphp83/bin/php /home/cyber.adminslab.com/public_html/wp-cron.php >/dev/null 2>&1

Before we added it, the same command said

Code:

no crontab for cyber2602

. Replace

Code:

cyber2602

with your site's user (the owner of

Code:

public_html

Code:

stat -c %U /home/yourdomain.com/public_html

).

To change a job, use the edit (pencil) button; to remove it, the delete button. If the list looks empty, click Fetch Current Cron Jobs: the page doesn't always load them on its own.

Step 4: Turn off the built-in WP-Cron
By default WordPress runs its scheduled tasks (publishing scheduled posts, plugin update checks, LiteSpeed Cache image optimization, WooCommerce jobs) when a visitor opens a page. On a quiet site tasks run late; on a busy site the check runs on every page view. With a real cron in place, switch the visitor trigger off:

Code:

cd /home/yourdomain.com/public_html
sudo -u cyber2602 wp config set DISABLE_WP_CRON true --raw

WP-CLI answered

Code:

Success: Added the constant 'DISABLE_WP_CRON' to the 'wp-config.php' file with the raw value 'true'.

(No WP-CLI yet? See our WordPress install guide. Or add

Code:

define( 'DISABLE_WP_CRON', true );

Code:

wp-config.php

above the "That's all, stop editing" line with the File Manager.)

Do step 3 before step 4. If you disable WP-Cron without a server cron, scheduled posts and plugin tasks silently stop.

Step 5: Prove it works
List WordPress's queued tasks:

Code:

sudo -u cyber2602 wp cron event list --fields=hook,next_run_relative

Right after we disabled WP-Cron, two tasks were overdue and showed

Code:

now

Code:

wp_update_plugins

and

Code:

litespeed_task_lqip

. To see cron start the job, check the system log:

Code:

journalctl -u cron --since "-15min" --no-pager | grep cyber2602

Every five minutes the log shows a session opening for the site user and the command it ran:
[Image: attachment.php?aid=529]

To test the command without waiting, run it by hand as the site user, then list the tasks again:

Code:

sudo -u cyber2602 /usr/local/lsws/lsphp83/bin/php wp-cron.php; echo EXIT=$?
sudo -u cyber2602 wp cron event list --fields=hook,next_run_relative

Ours printed

Code:

EXIT=0

, and the overdue tasks were gone:

Code:

wp_update_plugins

had run, and

Code:

litespeed_task_lqip

moved to its next slot. No output and exit code 0 is what success looks like; a PHP error here is the same error your cron job hits.

Other jobs people add

Laravel scheduler, every minute:
Code:
cd /home/yourdomain.com/public_html && /usr/local/lsws/lsphp83/bin/php artisan schedule:run >/dev/null 2>&1
Open a URL (some apps give you a cron URL):
Code:
curl -fsS https://yourdomain.com/cron.php >/dev/null 2>&1
Keep a log while you test: replace
Code:
>/dev/null 2>&1
with
Code:
>> /home/yourdomain.com/cron.log 2>&1
, then read the file. Switch back when it works so the log doesn't grow forever.

For backups, use CyberPanel's own schedule instead of a hand-made job: see scheduled backups in CyberPanel.

Common problems

Job never runs: is cron running?
Code:
systemctl is-active cron
should print
Code:
active
. Then check the log command above.
Runs from SSH but not from cron: cron has a tiny PATH. Use full paths for everything: PHP, scripts,
Code:
curl
(
Code:
/usr/bin/curl
).
Permission denied: the job runs as the site user, so it can't write to root-owned folders. Keep scripts and output inside
Code:
/home/yourdomain.com/
.
Wrong PHP version or missing extension: use the full
Code:
/usr/local/lsws/lsphpXX/bin/php
path that matches the site.
Scheduled posts show "Missed schedule": WP-Cron is disabled but the server job is missing or failing. Run the command by hand as the site user to see the error:
Code:
sudo -u cyber2602 /usr/local/lsws/lsphp83/bin/php /home/yourdomain.com/public_html/wp-cron.php

More CyberPanel guides

Tested on CyberPanel 3.0 (build 8, OpenLiteSpeed edition) on Ubuntu 24.04, October 2026. Menu names can change slightly between versions.