PHP spawn process

Question

How can I spawn a process in a PHP page in order to start a program that survives the execution time of the request?

In other words, I want the page to have a normal lifetime (few milliseconds) but launch a program that keeps running on the server. Thanks

Here's [a helpful tutorial on this topic](http://tuxradar.com/practicalphp/16/1/0) that I've referenced many times. You may have to get a few pages in to get specifically to process forking, but the whole bit is worth absorbing if you want to get into process management with php. — , Jan 21 '12 at 21:15
@rineez try [Wayback Machine](https://web.archive.org/web/20140627231234/https://tuxradar.com/practicalphp/16/1/0) — JSON, Nov 10 '22 at 02:33

score 21 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 17 '12 at 16:11

21

Use this code:

<?php exec('nohup /usr/bin/my-command > /dev/null 2>&1 &'); ?>

This forks the sub-process into the background and writes all of the output into /dev/null. That way PHP continues executing the script as if there won't be any output it has to wait for.

edited Nov 17 '12 at 16:11

mojuba

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answered Jan 21 '12 at 21:21

TimWolla

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what about windows? any equivalent? – marrat Mar 09 '12 at 10:05
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I don't know about Windows. I am Linux User. – TimWolla Mar 09 '12 at 22:56

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 21 '12 at 21:40

-1

I would suggest you to use CRON if you need to start a process on a time basis.

answered Jan 21 '12 at 21:40

JanLikar

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I don't the the original poster wants to know how to start a program at a certain time, which is what CRON does. Rather, the question is about having a web page written in PHP start a background process whenever someone goes to that page. That doesn't necessarily happen at a certain time. – Clint Brown May 29 '21 at 06:16

PHP spawn process

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