Php List Cron Job to Process Queues and bounces via CPanel in Two Steps- How To
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So our Parent company Integrated Business Technology Inc. of Cincinnati, Ohio recently deployed PHP List to managed their large email marketing lists. As the lead systems engineer on this project our main goal was to automate processing the message queue and bounce messages via the AptHost.com CPanel Cron Job / Cron Tab interface.
I spent hours searching PHP-List’s forum and documentation but could not find the clear and exact answer as to how to create the cron job in a CPanel environment. All the answers I found were for self hosted Linux servers where Shell access was available and the cron job was created via the command line.
So here is how I did it for our installation where the “lynx” command was available on hour CPanel hosting server to be used from the Cron Job scheduler.
Step one – Create a new user with only process queue and bounces permissions:
Log into your PHP List installation and scroll down to “Administrator functions”. Click on “Admins”. Then click “Add new admin”. Fill in the required information such as user name and password. Set only the following permissions to “All” – “ProcessQueue” and “ProcessBounces”. Set all other PHP List admin permission fields to “None”. The PHP List new user’s permission are very important because the url used(which you will see below) will be transmitting your username and password in the url string.
Step Two – Create the Cron Job / Cron Tab via the CPanel Cron Job Scheduler:
Log into your CPanel account and from the main screen scroll down to the advanced section or where you see the icon for “Cron Jobs”.
In the cron jobs menu set the frequency of how often you want to process bounces and queues.
To ProcessQueue:
Where it says “Command:” type:
lynx -dump ‘http://YOURDOMAIN.COM/YOURPHPLISTDIRECTORY/admin/index.php?page=processqueue&login=NEWADMINUSERNAME&password=YOURNEWUSERPASSWORD‘ > /dev/null
To ProcessBounces:
Where it says “Command:” type:
lynx -dump ‘http://YOURDOMAIN.COM/YOURPHPLISTDIRECTORY/admin/index.php?page=processbounces&login=NEWADMINUSERNAME&password=YOURNEWUSERPASSWORD‘ > /dev/null
Please note the URL has to be enclosed in apostrophes with no spaces after it and before it on the close. See the Example here> ‘ URL’
Thats it people! It really was that simple to automate the PHP List processqueue and processbounces.
Please keep in mind you need to configure batch processing, message throttle, and other settings within the config.php file to stay with in the max messages per-hour set by your hosting company.
Most provider have a 500 message / hour / domain limit such as AptHost.com, and Justhost.com, but we suggest you do not max out on your outgoing messages when sending your PHP List marketing emails, or new letters. If you max out your servers outgoing email rate you will not receive your reports and any other server related outgoing messages.
Our Justhost.com Server has a max rate of 500 email / hour. We are using a dedicated domain for PHP list and have our batches set to 490 / hour which gives us a daily volume of 11,760 email / day.
If you have any questions please feel free to ask via comment and we will be happy to get back to you.
Happy PHP Listing everyone!
April 3rd, 2010
Wow….it really works. Funny how easy it was. I’ve been spending hours trying to dig through the PHP List forums for a simple straight forward answer on how to do this. Thanks!