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 time…
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?