To enable the regular tasks feature in ORSEE, we need to install a so-called 'cronjob' which regularly runs a script that checks whether a task is due and starts it when required.

Cronjobs on Unix/Linux systems are managed by the cron daemon and configured in a crontab file. To list your currently installed crontab, type

crontab -l 

If you have no cronjobs installed yet, you may just install the crontab file which comes with ORSEE in the install/ directory named crontab-for-orsee by typing

crontab crontab-for-orsee

If there are cronjobs installed already, and you don't want to overwrite them, just copy the lines from the file crontab-for-orsee, call the editor vi on your crontab by typing

crontab -e

and paste in the lines at the end. Some useful vi commands: i - insert from here, ESC - leave insert mode, x - delete char, dd - delete line, :x - save and exit.

The cronjob configured for ORSEE reads as this: Every 5 minutes, test whether the file admin/cron.php in ORSEE's system path is readable, and if this is true, change to the admin/ directory and run the cron.php script via PHP, but without any output.

If you are familiar with cron, you may change the job configuration to fit your needs. Note that the cron job is running under the user name of the user who has installed it. Thus, all files in your ORSEE system directory should be readable for that user (and the usage/ directory should be writable for the cron user because the webalizer output will be written there).

Note: If you are putting your crontab under “cron.d”, then the cron command in the tab will also need to specify the user under which the cronjob is supposed to be run, as the 6th column (after the 5 frequency columns with the minutes and the stars*). For details see here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/296347/crontab-never-running-while-in-etc-cron-d