Set up Crontab and Supervisor Queue on Server : Laravel Technology

Learn how to configure Laravel Scheduler with crontab and run Laravel Queue Worker automatically using Supervisor on a Linux server.

Intro:

When deploying a Laravel application to a server, two important parts are often missed:

1. Laravel Scheduler will not run automatically unless crontab is configured.
2. Laravel Queue Worker will not keep running in the background unless you use Supervisor or another process monitor.

Laravel Scheduler only needs one cron entry on the server. That cron entry runs php artisan schedule:run every minute, while the actual scheduled tasks are defined inside the Laravel application.

For queues, Laravel recommends using queue:work and keeping it alive with a process monitor such as Supervisor.

1. Set Up Crontab for Laravel Scheduler

Laravel Scheduler lets you define scheduled tasks inside your Laravel code.

Example:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schedule;

Schedule::command('emails:send')->daily();

But to make the scheduler run on your server, you need a cron job.

Step 1: SSH into your server

ssh username@your-server-ip

Step 2: Check your PHP path

which php

Example result:

/usr/bin/php

Or for a specific PHP version:

/usr/bin/php8.2

Step 3: Add the cron entry

There are two common ways.

Option 1: Use the current user crontab

crontab -e

Add:

* * * * * cd /path/to/your-project && /usr/bin/php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

Example:

* * * * * cd /home/vagrant/gts_system && /usr/bin/php8.2 artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

Option 2: Edit /etc/crontab

sudo nano /etc/crontab

For /etc/crontab, include the username:

* * * * * username cd /path/to/your-project && /usr/bin/php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

Example:

* * * * * root cd /home/vagrant/gts_system && /usr/bin/php8.2 artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

Important note

This part:

>> /dev/null 2>&1

redirects both output and errors to /dev/null.

Test the Scheduler

Run:

cd /path/to/your-project
php artisan schedule:run

Or list scheduled tasks:

php artisan schedule:list

2. Set Up Laravel Queue Auto-run with Supervisor

Laravel queues are used for background jobs such as:

• Sending emails
• Processing notifications
• Exporting files
• Importing data
• Syncing APIs
• Running heavy tasks

If you run:

php artisan queue:work

directly in a terminal, the worker will stop when the terminal closes.

That is why production servers should use Supervisor to keep the worker running in the background.

Step 1: Install Supervisor

sudo apt update
sudo apt install supervisor

Start Supervisor:

sudo systemctl start supervisor

Enable Supervisor on system startup:

sudo systemctl enable supervisor

Step 2: Create a Supervisor config file

sudo nano /etc/supervisor/conf.d/laravel-worker.conf

You can name the config file based on your project:

sudo nano /etc/supervisor/conf.d/gts-worker.conf

Step 3: Configure the worker

Basic config:

[program:laravel-worker]
process_name=%(program_name)s_%(process_num)02d
directory=/path/to/your-project
command=/usr/bin/php artisan queue:work --sleep=3 --tries=3 --timeout=90
autostart=true
autorestart=true
user=your-username
numprocs=1
redirect_stderr=true
stdout_logfile=/path/to/your-project/storage/logs/worker.log
stopwaitsecs=3600

Example:

[program:gts-worker]
process_name=%(program_name)s_%(process_num)02d
directory=/home/vagrant/gts_system
command=/usr/bin/php8.2 artisan queue:work --sleep=3 --tries=3 --timeout=90
autostart=true
autorestart=true
user=root
numprocs=1
redirect_stderr=true
stdout_logfile=/home/vagrant/gts_system/storage/logs/worker.log
stopwaitsecs=3600

Step 4: Reload Supervisor

sudo supervisorctl reread
sudo supervisorctl update

Start the worker:

sudo supervisorctl start gts-worker:*

Check status:

sudo supervisorctl status

Queue:work vs Queue:listen

Some guides use:

php artisan queue:listen

However, for production, prefer:

php artisan queue:work

queue:listen can reload code changes automatically, but Laravel docs note that it is significantly less efficient than queue:work.

Recommended setup:

• Development: queue:listen is acceptable
• Production: queue:work + Supervisor
• After deployment: run php artisan queue:restart

php artisan queue:restart

Supervisor will restart the worker after it exits safely.

Final Checklist

After setup, check:

php artisan schedule:list
php artisan schedule:run
sudo supervisorctl status
tail -f storage/logs/worker.log
tail -f storage/logs/laravel.log

If the queue worker is not running, verify:

• Project path
• PHP binary path
• File permissions
• .env queue connection
• Supervisor config
• Worker log

Conclusion

When deploying Laravel to a server, you should configure both:

• Crontab for Laravel Scheduler
• Supervisor for Laravel Queue Worker

Crontab keeps scheduled tasks running every minute.

Supervisor keeps long-running queue workers alive in the background.

These two small configurations make Laravel applications much more stable in production.

CTA

If your Laravel app is already on a VPS or production server, check whether schedule:run is configured in crontab and queue:work is managed by Supervisor. Missing either one can cause scheduled tasks or queued jobs to silently stop working.