Not sure if this is more appropriate for Server Fault or Stack Overflow, but here goes.
I'm using mod_php on Apache MPM prefork and spawning a new process like-so:
<?php
exec("/usr/bin/php -f backgroundScript.php &");
?>
Assuming that the new backgroundScript.php child process runs for a long timeā¦
1) Is the parent PHP process now considered idle? Does it return to the server pool?
2) If Apache does kill the parent PHP process to return to MinSpareServers
, will backgroundScript.php also get cleaned-up or continue running indefinitely?
3) Are there other ways that Apache may inadvertently kill the backgroundScript.php child process? service httpd stop
perhaps?