It is common to use shells to handle background tasks on your server. Sometimes that task needs to be executed as quickly as possible. For example, you have a queue of tasks that need to process as soon as entered.

CakePHP can be configured on Unix servers to run a modified shell script via crontab.

Begin by modifying the defaultShell that comes with cake. I have created a new script call secondShell.

#!/bin/bash
TERM=dumb
export TERM
cmd="cake"
while [ $# -ne 0 ]; do
   if [ "$1" = "-cli" ] || [ "$1" = "-console" ]; then
      PATH=$PATH:$2
   shift
   else
      cmd="${cmd} $1"
   fi
   shift
done
COUNT=0
while [ $COUNT -le 30 ]; do
   $cmd
   let COUNT=COUNT+1
   sleep 2;
done

The modifications make this shell run ever 2 seconds for 30 occurrences (2 x 30 = 60 seconds)

To run this shell place it in the crontab by using command “crontab -e” in terminal.

*/1     *       *       *       *       /(your path)/app/Lib/Shells/secondShell YourShell -cli /usr/bin -console /path/to/your/app/Console -app /(your path)/app >/dev/null 2>&1

The */1 tells the scheduler to run the CakePHP Shell script every minute. Learn more about cron job scheduling