How do I execute another PHP script in the background using cURL on LEMP stack?

Question

I've done a lot of googling but not found why this doesn't work (all variables defined earlier in code):

shell_exec("curl https://$domain/testscript.php?o=".strval($num1)."&t=".strval($num2)." > /dev/null 2>&1 &");

The script gets executed but my calling scripts remains unresponsive until completion, defeating the whole purpose.

Most examples I find use a direct call to the php interpreter but I'm unable to use that method because:

the query strings don't then work
I get a lot of errors due to relative paths which I cannot easily resolve

Does this answer your question? [Asynchronous shell exec in PHP](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/222414/asynchronous-shell-exec-in-php) — shingo, Feb 11 '23 at 04:31

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 13 '23 at 00:47

A level of indirection solved this: instead of using shell_exec to invoke cURL as above, I placed it within a script. Then used shell_exec to execute that intermediate script with the php compiler.

The web-page is instantaneously responsive with the long-running process completing much later in the background.

How do I execute another PHP script in the background using cURL on LEMP stack?

1 Answers1