Still on Drupal 7? Security support for Drupal 7 ended on 5 January 2025. Please visit our Drupal 7 End of Life resources page to review all of your options.Background Process Legacy
The background process launcher bundled with Ultimate Cron is internally called Background Process Legacy and will only be available when
Cache
The cache logger stores the last job message in the cache. Administration log messages, such as: Job modified, Job disabled, etc., are
Configuring
In order for Ultimate Cron to work properly, cron must be invoked every minute.
Core compatibility
Ultimate Cron hooks into drupal_cron_run(), so this function is entirely safe to run at any time, including from simpletests where Ultimate
Creating plugins
Please see the advanced help section in the module.
Crontab
The crontab scheduler provides the option to use unix-style crontab rules for scheduling jobs.
Database
The database logger logs cron job messages to the database (table: ultimate_cron_log), and can be configured at /admin/config/system/cron
Features
Highlight of Ultimate Crons features
General
This plugin contains the settings of, well, all the stuff I didn't know where else to put.
Hooks
See ultimate_cron.api.php
Installing
Download the module: drush dl ultimate_cron Enable it: drush en ultimate_cron
Jobs
The legend for the status icons on the job list page is:
Launchers
The launcher plugins are responsible for launching/running the cron jobs. There are 2 launchers bundled with Ultimate Cron: Serial and
Locking
Ultimate Cron has its own locking backend in order to support persistent and unlockable locks across requests.
Loggers
Loggers are responsible for logging job results. Ultimate Cron comes bundled with 2 loggers: Database and Cache.
Memory exhaust
Ultimate Cron uses PHP shutdown handlers to clean up stale locks, if a job dies. However, in some cases, the shutdown handlers cannot be run
Plugins
Ultimate Cron consists almost entirely of plugins which can be configured.
Poormans Cron
This plugin provides the basic framework for the Poormans Cron functionality.
Progress
Ultimate Cron supports an API for maintaining a progress throughout the cron jobs execution.
Queue
This plugin adds jobs for each cron queue defined in the system.
Related modules
Modules related to Ultimate Cron (extending or otherwise supporting)
Schedulers
Schedulers are responsible for determining when a job should run. Ultimate Cron comes bundled with 2 schedulers: Crontab and Simple.
Serial
The serial launcher runs each job consecutively, just like core cron would. The default settings for the serial launcher can be configured
Settings
Settings plugins can be used for arbitrary job settings or functionality.
Signals
Ultimate Cron supports an API for sending signals to cron jobs.
Simple
The simple scheduler builds on the crontab scheduler, but provides a simple set of presets instead of the full bloated crontab syntax.
Transactions
Queries that need to send information can cause problems if performed inside transactions (locks, progress signals, etc.).
Ultimate Cron 2.x
The documentation for Ultimate Cron 2.x
Upgrade path from 7.x-1.x and previous
Upgrading from an earlier version of Ultimate Cron to a 7.x-2.x version has some caveats
hax0r
A lot of the functionality in Ultimate Cron can be replaced by other modules. This includes the class used for the jobs.
