php_file_changes.md

Script to detect changes in your PHP files

1) Create your shell script and save it:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Cron Script Path
CRON_PATH=/the_working_directory_of_your_cronjob_where_logs_will_be_saved
SCAN_PATH=/the_path_you_want_to_watch

# Go to cron directory to store data there
cd $CRON_PATH

# Set dates
TODAY=`date +%Y%m%d`
DA1=`date --date="1 days ago" +"%Y%m%d"`
DA2=`date --date="2 days ago" +"%Y%m%d"`

# Remove old logs
rm $DA2.log

# Make a list of the files
find $SCAN_PATH -type f -iname "*.php" -exec ls -l {} \; | awk '{ print $9 "\t" $5 }' > $TODAY.log

# Compare the list with the previous list
diff --side-by-side --suppress-common-lines $DA1.log $TODAY.log 1>&2

This bash script will scan all your files .php and it will create a log file where it will store each path to each file and the file size, then, it will compare the new file against the previous file to check for any difference and then and output differences to STDERR, if no difference is found it will not return any result.

2) Give your shell script execution permissions:

chmod +x script.sh

3) Create your cronjob, first create a text file to store your crontab:

touch crontab.txt

4) Edit your file and enter the following changing the path to your shell script and your email:

SHELL="/bin/bash"
# Mail
MAILTO="email@example.com"

# Modified files daly report
00 0 * * * /path_to_your/shell_script.sh

This cronjob script will execute your shell script, and if it receives any data into the STDERR it will send an email to the address above, so lets add this file to the crontab:

crontab crontab.txt

Done, to check if the crontab is created type:

crontab -l