 running and configuring cron goal configure your system so that cron will run automatically what are cron tasks  to ensure that your site and its modules continue to function well a group of administrative operations should be run periodically these operations are called cron tasks and running the tasks is known as running cron  depending on how often content is updated on your site you might need to run cron on a schedule ranging from hourly to weekly to keep your site running well what options are available for running cron  if the core automated cron module is installed your site will run cron periodically on a schedule you can configure you can set up a task on your web server to visit the cron url  which is unique to your site on a schedule you can also run cron manually but this is not the recommended way to make sure it is run periodically steps in the manage administration menu navigate to configuration   system   cron  note the last run time on the page if you want to run cron right now click run cron and wait for cron to finish if you have a way to configure tasks on your web server copy the link where it says to run cron from outside the site go to  set up a task to visit that url on your desired cron schedule such as once an hour or once a week on linuxlike servers you can use the wget command to visit a url if you configure an outside task you should uninstall the automated cron module if you are not configuring an outside task and you have the core automated cron module installed select a schedule for automated cron runs in cron settings   run cron every  click save configuration  additional resources concept cron drupal user guide  configuring cron maintenance tasks drupal user guide  