How to execute a php script from another ?
I want to execute 3 php scripts from my php file without waiting for the 3 scripts to finish. In other words, the 3 php files need to be executed all at once (parallel) instead of one-by-one (sequentiell).
The 3 scripts are in the same folder of my main php file (script).
If you do not want to wait for them to finish, run them with either
exec('php script.php &> /dev/null &');
shell_exec('php script.php &> /dev/null &');
system('php script.php &> /dev/null &');
`php script.php &> /dev/null &`
Any of those should accomplish the job, depending on your PHPs configuration. Although they are different functions, their behaviour should be similar since all output is being redirected to /dev/null and the proccess is immediately detached.
I use the first solution in a production environment where a client launches a bash SMSs sending script which can take up to 10 minutes to finish, it has never failed.
More info in: http://php.net/exec · http://php.net/shell_exec · http://php.net/system
how about using exec("php yourscript.php")
do consider using queuing system to store your php script names and worker to fetch data from queue and do the execution e.g. beanstalkd
You need to run them as detached jobs, and it is not really easy - or portable. The usual solution is to use nohup or exec the scripts with stdout and stderr redirected to /dev/null (or NUL in Windows), but this often has issues.
If possible, make the three scripts available as scripts on the web server, and access them through asynchronous cURL functions. This has also the advantage of being able to test the scripts through the browser, and supplying you the scripts output.
Other ways include using popen(), or if under Linux, the at or batch utility.
taken from http://board.phpbuilder.com/showthread.php?10351142-How-can-I-exec%28%29-in-a-non-blocking-fashion:
In order to execute a command have have it not hang your php script while it runs, the program you run must not output back to php. To do this, redirect both stdout and stderr to /dev/null, then background it.
> /dev/null 2>&1 &
In order to execute a command and have it spawned off as another process that is not dependent on the apache thread to keep running (will not die if somebody cancels the page) run this:
exec('bash -c "exec nohup setsid your_command > /dev/null 2>&1 &"');
For windows http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.exec.php:
function execInBackground($path, $exe, $args = "") {
global $conf;
if (file_exists($path . $exe)) {
chdir($path);
if (substr(php_uname(), 0, 7) == "Windows"){
pclose(popen("start \"bla\" \"" . $exe . "\" " . escapeshellarg($args), "r"));
} else {
exec("./" . $exe . " " . escapeshellarg($args) . " > /dev/null &");
}
}
To the shell_exec, add the '/B' parameter, this allows you to run several executables at once.
See my answer at this question: PHP on a windows machine; Start process in background
It's the same.
shell_exec('start /B "C:\Path\to\program.exe"); /B parameter is key
here. I tried to find the topic for you again, but I can't seem to
find it anymore. This works for me.
I hope this solves the problem for you.
Related
I am attempting to launch sar and have it run forever via a php script. But for whatever reason it never actually launches. I have tried the following:
exec('sar -u 1 > /home/foo/foo.txt &');
exec('sar -o /home/foo/foo -u 1 > /dev/null 2>&1 &');
However it never launches sar. If I just use:
exec('sar -u 1')
It works but it just hangs the php script. My understanding that if a program is started with exec function, in order for it to continue running in the background, the output of the program must be redirected to a file or another output stream.
I will assume your running this on a *nix platform. To get php to run something in the background and not wait for the process to finish I would recommend 2 things: First use nohup and also redirect the output of the command to /dev/null (trash).
Example:
<?php
exec('nohup sar -u 1 > /dev/null 2>/dev/null &');
nohup means we do not send the "hang up" signal (which kills the process) when the terminal running the command closes.
> /dev/null 2>/dev/null & redirects the "normal" and "error" outputs to the blackhole /dev/null location. This allows PHP to not have to wait for the outputs of the command being called.
On another note, if you are using PHP just to call a shell command, you may want to consider other options like Ubuntu's Upstart with no PHP component--if you are using Ubuntu that is.
I am using this code on Ubuntu 13.04,
$cmd = "sleep 20 &> /dev/null &";
exec($cmd, $output);
Although it actually sits there for 20 seconds and waits :/ usually it works fine when using & to send a process to the background, but on this machine php just won't do it :/
What could be causing this??
Try
<?PHP
$cmd = '/bin/sleep';
$args = array('20');
$pid=pcntl_fork();
if($pid==0)
{
posix_setsid();
pcntl_exec($cmd,$args,$_ENV);
// child becomes the standalone detached process
}
echo "DONE\n";
I tested it for it works.
Here you first fork the php process and then exceute your task.
Or if the pcntl module is not availabil use:
<?PHP
$cmd = "sleep 20 &> /dev/null &";
exec('/bin/bash -c "' . addslashes($cmd) . '"');
The REASON this doesn't work is that exec() executes the string you're passing into it. Since & is interpreted by the shell as "execute in the background", but you don't execute a shell in your exec call, the & is just passed along with 20 to the /bin/sleep executable - which probably just ignores that.
The same applies to the redirection of output, since that is also parsed by the shell, not in exec.
So, you either need to find a way to fork your process (as described above), or a way to run the subprocess as a shell.
My workaround to do this on ubuntu 13.04 with Apache2 and any version of PHP:
libssh2-php, I just used nohup $cmd & inside a local SSH session using PHP and it ran it just fine the background, of course this requires putting certain security protocols in place, such as enabling SSH access for the webserver user, so it would have exec-like permissions then only allowing localhost to login to the webserver ssh account.
I have the following exec() command with an & sign at the end so the script runs in the background. However the script is not running in the background. It's timing out in the browser after exactly 5.6 minutes. Also if i close the browser the script doesn't keep running.
exec("/usr/local/bin/php -q /home/user/somefile.php &")
If I run the script via the command line, it does not time out. My question is how do i prevent timeout. How do i run the script in the background using exec so it's not browser dependent. What am i doing wrong and what should i look at.
exec() function handle outputs from your executed program, so I suggest you to redirect outputs to /dev/null (a virtual writable file, that automatically loose every data you write in).
Try to run :
exec("/usr/local/bin/php -q /home/gooffers/somefile.php > /dev/null 2>&1 &");
Note : 2>&1 redirects error output to standard output, and > /dev/null redirects standard output to that virtual file.
If you have still difficulties, you can create a script that just execute other scripts. exec() follows a process when it is doing a task, but releases when the task is finished. if the executed script just executes another one, the task is very quick and exec is released the same way.
Let's see an implementation. Create a exec.php that contains :
<?php
if (count($argv) == 1)
{
die('You must give a script to exec...');
}
array_shift($argv);
$cmd = '/usr/local/bin/php -q';
foreach ($argv as $arg)
{
$cmd .= " " . escapeshellarg($arg);
}
exec("{$cmd} > /dev/null 2>&1 &");
?>
Now, run the following command :
exec("/usr/local/bin/php -q exec.php /home/gooffers/somefile.php > /dev/null 2>&1 &");
If you have arguments, you can give them too :
exec("/usr/local/bin/php -q exec.php /home/gooffers/somefile.php x y z > /dev/null 2>&1 &");
You'll need to use shell_exec() instead:
shell_exec("/usr/local/bin/php -q /home/gooffers/somefile.php &");
That being said, if you have shell access, why don't you install this as a cronjob? I'm not sure why a PHP script is invoking another to run like this.
I'm trying to trigger a PHP script to run in the background using the exec() function but I cannot get it to work. I've read countless posts on stack overflow and other forums and tried many variations to no avail.
Server Info:
Operating System: Linux
PHP: 5.2.17
Apache Version: 2.2.23
Home Directory: /home1/username
I'm currently using the code:
exec("/home1/username/php /home1/username/public_html/myscript.php > /dev/null &");
When I run the above script I get no error_log and no error in my cPanel error log, however the script definitely doesn't execute. When I browse to http://www.mydomain.com/myscript.php it runs and e-mails me instantly. Any idea why this isn't working / how I can find out what error is being produced?
Update cPanel Process Manager Output
exec("php /home1/username/php /home1/username/public_html/myscript.php > /dev/null &");
Produces:
27183 php /home1/username/php /home1/username/public_html/myscript.php
27221 [sh]
27207 php /home1/username/php /home1/username/public_html/myscript.php
27219 php /home1/username/php /home1/username/public_html/myscript.php
27222 php /home1/username/php /home1/username/public_html/myscript.php
27224 php /home1/username/php /home1/username/public_html/myscript.php
27249 sh -c php /home1/username/php /home1/username/public_html/myscript.php > /dev/null &
Is that normal? Script appears to hang around for a long time even though it should execute very quickly.
Couldn't get the exec working with php. Even when I got shell access to the server the command just hung. I decided to use wget instead which accomplishes the same thing. Works great :)
exec("wget http://www.mydomain.com/myscript.php > /dev/null &");
Have you tried invoking the php CLI directly?
exec("php /home1/username/php /home1/username/public_html/myscript.php > /dev/null &");
You will not need the #!, which would output to the browser if called through Apache.
EDIT.
It looks like your script is working, but your PHP script executing in the background is hanging (not exiting). Try this variation:
exec("php /home1/username/php /home1/username/public_html/myscript.php > /dev/null 2>&1 &");
What does “> /dev/null 2>&1″ mean?
since you want to run the myscript from your command line, wy not do this:
exec('(/home1/username/public_html/myscript.php) > /dev/null &',$r,$s);
And write this as a first line in the myscript.php:
#!/home1/username/php -n
<?php
//script goes here
?>
That should work. The hashbang tells the system what programme to use to run the script that follows, so you don't need to add that to your exec call. Also, it's safer (and therefore better) to put brackets around the full script call, just so PHP knows what output has to be redirected to what stream, to avoid any issues that might occur. Especially when libs or packages like PHP-GTK are installed on the server (hence the -n option).
I have a command I want to run, but I do not want PHP to sit and wait for the result.
<?php
echo "Starting Script";
exec('run_baby_run');
echo "Thanks, Script is running in background";
?>
Is it possible to have PHP not wait for the result.. i.e. just kick it off and move along to the next command.
I cant find anything, and not sure its even possible. The best I could find was someone making a CRON job to start in a minute.
From the documentation:
In order to execute a command and have it not hang your PHP script while
it runs, the program you run must not output back to PHP. To do this,
redirect both stdout and stderr to /dev/null, then background it.
> /dev/null 2>&1 &
In order to execute a command and have
it spawned off as another process that
is not dependent on the Apache thread
to keep running (will not die if
somebody cancels the page) run this:
exec('bash -c "exec nohup setsid your_command > /dev/null 2>&1 &"');
You can run the command in the background by adding a & at the end of it as:
exec('run_baby_run &');
But doing this alone will hang your script because:
If a program is started with exec function, in order for it to continue running in the background, the output of the program must be redirected to a file or another output stream. Failing to do so will cause PHP to hang until the execution of the program ends.
So you can redirect the stdout of the command to a file, if you want to see it later or to /dev/null if you want to discard it as:
exec('run_baby_run > /dev/null &');
This uses wget to notify a URL of something without waiting.
$command = 'wget -qO- http://test.com/data=data';
exec('nohup ' . $command . ' >> /dev/null 2>&1 & echo $!', $pid);
This uses ls to update a log without waiting.
$command = 'ls -la > content.log';
exec('nohup ' . $command . ' >> /dev/null 2>&1 & echo $!', $pid);
I know this question has been answered but the answers i found here didn't work for my scenario ( or for Windows ).
I am using windows 10 laptop with PHP 7.2 in Xampp v3.2.4.
$command = 'php Cron.php send_email "'. $id .'"';
if ( substr(php_uname(), 0, 7) == "Windows" )
{
//windows
pclose(popen("start /B " . $command . " 1> temp/update_log 2>&1 &", "r"));
}
else
{
//linux
shell_exec( $command . " > /dev/null 2>&1 &" );
}
This worked perfectly for me.
I hope it will help someone with windows. Cheers.
There are two possible ways to implement it.
The easiest way is direct result to dev/null
exec("run_baby_run > /dev/null 2>&1 &");
But in case you have any other operations to be performed you may consider ignore_user_abort
In this case the script will be running even after you close connection.
"exec nohup setsid your_command"
the nohup allows your_command to continue even though the process that launched may terminate first. If it does, the the SIGNUP signal will be sent to your_command causing it to terminate (unless it catches that signal and ignores it).
On Windows, you may use the COM object:
if(class_exists('COM')) {
$shell = new COM('WScript.Shell');
$shell->Run($cmd, 1, false);
}
else {
exec('nohup ' . $cmd . ' 2>&1 &');
}