Critical Safety Improvements:
- Prevent duplicate DISABLE_WP_CRON entries
- Detect and modify existing definitions (commented or not)
- Automatic rollback on failure
- Verification of changes before committing
Safety Function Features:
✅ Checks file exists and is writable before modification
✅ Detects existing DISABLE_WP_CRON (even if set to false)
✅ Modifies existing line instead of adding duplicate
✅ Ignores commented lines when detecting existing definitions
✅ Creates temporary backup (.wpbak) during modification
✅ Verifies change was successful after modification
✅ Automatically restores backup if verification fails
✅ Removes temporary backup only on success
Prevents Issues:
❌ No duplicate define() statements
❌ No syntax errors from malformed sed commands
❌ No broken wp-config.php files
❌ No accumulation of multiple entries on repeated runs
Error Handling:
- Returns 0 on success, 1 on failure
- Calling code can gracefully handle failures
- User feedback when modification fails
- Skips sites that fail instead of breaking entire batch
Features:
- Scan for all WordPress installations on server
- Disable wp-cron for specific domain, user, or server-wide
- Check wp-cron status for any domain or user
- Automatic wp-config.php backups before changes
- Intelligent cron job staggering to prevent load spikes
Load Distribution:
- Staggers cron times across 15-minute windows
- Example with 300 sites: distributes across minutes 0-14
- Site 1: runs at 0,15,30,45
- Site 2: runs at 1,16,31,46
- Site 3: runs at 2,17,32,47
- ...continues up to minute 14, then wraps
- Prevents all sites from running simultaneously
- Uses user crontabs (not system cron) for proper permissions
Technical Details:
- Adds DISABLE_WP_CRON to wp-config.php
- Creates user-specific crontab entries
- Prevents duplicate cron jobs
- Shows cron timing when adding jobs
- Handles multiple WP installations per user
cschantz