Magento – How to setup Magento 2.2 cron job

First off, Magento's default cron handling is (nicely put) a little strange. Please have a look at the Aoe_Scheduler (https://github.com/AOEpeople/Aoe_Scheduler), which provides a very convenient user interface and helps you find possible errors in your setup more easily. In addition, it comes with a custom shell script that you can extend to your needs.

I mention the Aoe_Scheduler as it handles potential deadlocks that might occur in vanilla Magento cron setup better. We've experienced deadlocks with cron jobs in Magento in the past for commands that might exceed defined timeouts. Aoe_Scheduler fixed these issues.

public function refreshIndex(Mage_Cron_Model_Schedule $schedule)
{
    /** @var $helper Enterprise_Index_Helper_Data */
    $helper = Mage::helper('enterprise_index');

    /** @var $lock Enterprise_Index_Model_Lock */
    $lock   = Enterprise_Index_Model_Lock::getInstance();

    if ($lock->setLock(self::REINDEX_FULL_LOCK)) {

        /**
         * Workaround for fatals and memory crashes: Invalidating indexers that are in progress
         * Successful lock setting is considered that no other full reindex processes are running
         */
        $this->_invalidateInProgressIndexers();

        $client = Mage::getModel('enterprise_mview/client');
        try {

            //full re-index
            $inactiveIndexes = $this->_getInactiveIndexersByPriority();
            $rebuiltIndexes = array();
            foreach ($inactiveIndexes as $inactiveIndexer) {
                $tableName  = (string)$inactiveIndexer->index_table;
                $actionName = (string)$inactiveIndexer->action_model->all;
                $client->init($tableName);
                if ($actionName) {
                    $client->execute($actionName);
                    $rebuiltIndexes[] = $tableName;
                }
            }

            //re-index by changelog
            $indexers = $helper->getIndexers(true);
            foreach ($indexers as $indexerName => $indexerData) {
                $indexTable = (string)$indexerData->index_table;
                $actionName = (string)$indexerData->action_model->changelog;
                $client->init($indexTable);
                if (isset($actionName) && !in_array($indexTable, $rebuiltIndexes)) {
                    $client->execute($actionName);
                }
            }

        } catch (Exception $e) {
            $lock->releaseLock(self::REINDEX_FULL_LOCK);
            throw $e;
        }

        $lock->releaseLock(self::REINDEX_FULL_LOCK);
    }

    return $this;
}

This runs "always" on every cron execution. It runs full re-indexes for the indexes that are needed and processes the changelog for those that don't.

Also, you can still run the CLI shell scripts, but they won't consider the partial changelog and will blindly do a full reindex.

If you are getting dead locks, you may want to set all of your indexers to Manual and setup alternative processes to rebuild the index at off-peak time hours (when admins are away). Only Product Prices and Stock Status should be set to Update on Save.

Also keep in mind that with partial re-indexing status in index_process table is not used anymore but calculated from enterprise_mview_metadata.

Disabling some internal modules like Mage_Rss can also help impact the frequency of invalidation of the indexes.

Further reading:

• http://davidalger.com/development/magento/a-new-breed-of-cron-in-magento-ee-1-13-2/