Running a Script in the Background?

I was just curious how can I run a script in the background I'd imainge I use the Shell_exec() function through PHP then find the PID and kill it when I need to?

The reason I ask for is because the script could run for several days, but at the same time I will monitor its status through my administration section, but at the same time I want to be able to log out of my admin and come back the next day to check its status...

How could I do this?

I would need to kill it sooner or later...

 

shell_exec will do that since it can be used to run any system command. Run it using shell_exec (and add & to it to run in the background) then when you need to kill it, run any command like "ps ax | grep 'the file_name'", process the output to get the process ID and then kill it using shell_exec too.

 

You don't know where I can get a tutorial on how to do this do you?

 

Hmmm no but you can look for them one by one.

1. Run unix command in background
2. Run a unix command from php

You will find it easy.