How to set timezone in Crontab + Php?

Question

PHP

Created a task in Cron to update records at exactly 6.00 AM:
0 6-8 * * * php $HOME/yii plan-robot/robot-start
In the controller

$history->date_create=date("Y-m-d H:i:s");
  $history->save();

Time in Apache2/php.ini set the Moscow zone.
But all the same, when starting the task in the database, the entry is set at 03:00:00
I understand that somewhere the time is set to GMT ... the question is what affects and how to fix it?

Answer 1

When run by cron, the script is run via the CLI, which means changes to Apache2/php.ini will not be used.
Usually there is a separate cli/php.ini file, and set the zone in it.
Also, the zone can be set globally in the script itself . And of course, I agree with the answer above - it's better to use timestamp - or not to depend on local settings.
date_default_timezone_set('Europe/Moscow');
time()DateTime::getTimestamp()