php cron job doesn't update php.ini

Question

I recently modify the "include_path" var in my php.ini file. Before you ask, I restarted the apache service. The change work for every pages we access from a web browser.

The problem is the cron jobs doesn't seems to consider that change. When I do a phpinfo() inside the cron job, it uses the same php.ini file than the web server and it is the one I changed, but the value beside "include_path" is the old one.

So is there a way to "restart" crontab? Or maybe there is another problem?

Answer 1

Several systems use a separate php.ini file for web and CLI. You will need to make changes in that one as well: How to find the php.ini file used by the command line?

The easiest way to find this file is to run this at the command line: php --ini which will result in output like this:

user@computer:~$ php --ini
Configuration File (php.ini) Path: /etc/php5/cli
Loaded Configuration File:         /etc/php5/cli/php.ini
Scan for additional .ini files in: /etc/php5/cli/conf.d

What you see as "Loaded Configuration File:" is where you need to add your changes.

EDIT: Another option, is in your CRON script use set_include_path() to make the change at runtime.

Answer 2

PHP generally has two .ini files. One for in-webserver (SAPI) and one for command-line (CLI) usage. If you modified only the SAPI one, then anything running from CLI (eg cron jobs) will not see the change.

do a php -i at the command line to see where PHP is looking for its ini file while in that mode.