通过exec（）调用时，长时间运行的PHP脚本会停止，但在通过CLI调用时会结束

Question

I have a bunch of scripts which take a long time to complete. Some of them can take up to 20 minutes.

There's a Bash script which executes these PHP scripts. When I call this Bash script through the CLI as root, all the PHP scripts finish without any problems. But when I call the Bash script with PHP's exec() function through the browser, the scripts suddenly stop after 7/8 minutes without throwing any errors.

Is there a certain restriction to the time a process or script can run when executed through Apache/PHP?

I've tried:

• set_time_limit(0)
• exec('nohup /path/to/bashscript')
• exec('/path/to/bashscript | at now')

The last two tried solutions have been recommended by others who have had problems with long running scripts, but it doesn't help me at all.

Note: The Bash script which executes the PHP scripts is CakePHP's console app. I have to execute the PHP scripts through this Bash script to make use of all the functionality of CakePHP (models, shell methods, etc). And I need to be able to call the Bash script through the browser, and let it run in the background.

The server is a VPS and has WHM/cPanel installed.

Answer 1

you need to increase max execution time using (Careful while setting 0, it makes your execution time infinite)

 ini_set('max_execution_time', 0);

but I would recommend to user

   proc_open();

over exec(); this will pipe your processes and you can que other processes as well. Read more about proc_open [HERE] http://www.sitepoint.com/proc-open-communicate-with-the-outside-world/ !

Answer 2

Set:

ini_set('max_execution_time', 0);

on very top of your script. This will disable time limits. However, imo it does not make much sense to execute a 20 min script in the browser.