How does the server configuration, specifically the allow_url_fopen setting, impact the execution of external PHP files in a cronjob?

When the allow_url_fopen setting is disabled in the server configuration, PHP scripts are not allowed to open remote files using URLs. This can impact the execution of external PHP files in a cronjob if those files are being accessed via a URL. To solve this issue, you can use cURL to fetch the remote file and execute it locally within the cronjob script.

<?php

// Initialize cURL session
$ch = curl_init();

// Set the URL to fetch
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://example.com/external_script.php');

// Set cURL options to execute the script locally
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);

// Execute the cURL session
$output = curl_exec($ch);

// Close cURL session
curl_close($ch);

// Execute the fetched script
eval($output);

?>