silverstripe-framework/docs/en/02_Developer_Guides/17_CLI/index.md

summary: Automate SilverStripe, run Cron Jobs or sync with other platforms through the Command Line Interface.

Command Line

SilverStripe can call controllers through a command line interface (CLI) just as easily as through a web browser. This can be used to automate tasks with cron jobs, run unit tests, or anything else that needs to interface over the command line.

The main entry point for any command line execution is cli-script.php. For example, to run a database rebuild from the command line, use this command:

:::bash
cd your-webroot/
php framework/cli-script.php dev/build

Your command line php version is likely to use a different configuration as your webserver (run `php -i` to find out more). This can be a good thing, your CLI can be configured to use higher memory limits than you would want your website to have.

Sake: SilverStripe Make

Sake is a simple wrapper around cli-script.php. It also tries to detect which php executable to use if more than one are available.

If you are using a debian server: Check you have the php-cli package installed for sake to work. If you get an error when running the command php -v, then you may not have php-cli installed so sake won't work.

Installation

You can copy the sake file into /usr/bin/sake for easier access (this is optional):

cd your-webroot/
sudo ./framework/sake installsake

This currently only works on UNIX-like systems, not on Windows.

Configuration

Sometimes SilverStripe needs to know the URL of your site, for example, when sending an email or generating static files. When you're visiting your site in a web browser this is easy to work out, but if you're executing scripts on the command line, it has no way of knowing.

To work this out, you should add lines of this form to your _ss_environment.php file.

:::php
global $_FILE_TO_URL_MAPPING;

$_FILE_TO_URL_MAPPING['/Users/sminnee/Sites'] = 'http://localhost';

The above statement tells SilverStripe that anything executed under the /Users/sminnee/Sites directly will have the base URL http://localhost.

You can add multiple file to url mapping definitions. The most specific mapping will be used. For example:

:::php
global $_FILE_TO_URL_MAPPING;

$_FILE_TO_URL_MAPPING['/Users/sminnee/Sites'] = 'http://localhost';
$_FILE_TO_URL_MAPPING['/Users/sminnee/Sites/mysite'] = 'http://mysite.localhost';

Usage

Sake is particularly useful for running build tasks

:::bash
cd /your/site/folder
sake dev/build "flush=1"
sake dev/tests/all

It can also be handy if you have a long running script.

:::bash
cd /your/site/folder
sake dev/tasks/MyReallyLongTask

Running processes

You can use sake to make daemon processes for your application.

Step 1: Make a task or controller class that runs a loop. To avoid memory leaks, you should make the PHP process exit when it hits some reasonable memory limit. Sake will automatically restart your process whenever it exits.

Step 2: Include some appropriate sleep()s so that your process doesn't hog the system. The best thing to do is to have a short sleep when the process is in the middle of doing things, and a long sleep when doesn't have anything to do.

This code provides a good template:

:::php
<?php

class MyProcess extends Controller {

	private static $allowed_actions = array(
		'index'
	);

	function index() {
		set_time_limit(0);

		while(memory_get_usage() < 32*1024*1024) {
			if($this->somethingToDo()) {
				$this->doSomething();
				sleep(1)
			} else {
				sleep(300);
			}
		}
	}
}

Step 3: Install the "daemon" command-line tool on your server.

Step 4: Use sake to start and stop your process

:::bash
sake -start MyProcess
sake -stop MyProcess

Sake stores Pid and log files in the site root directory.

GET parameters as arguments

You can add parameters to the command by using normal form encoding. All parameters will be available in $_GET within SilverStripe. Using the cli-script.php directly:

:::bash
cd your-webroot/
php framework/cli-script.php myurl myparam=1 myotherparam=2

Or if you're using sake

:::bash
sake myurl "myparam=1&myotherparam=2"

Running Regular Tasks With Cron

On a UNIX machine, you can typically run a scheduled task with a cron job. You can execute any BuildTask in SilverStripe as a cron job using Sake.

:::bash
* * * * * /your/site/folder/sake dev/tasks/MyTask