Daemon

A really useful tool with a very boring name. Daemonize your PHP scripts with two lines of code.

Requirements

• posix and pcntl extensions
• PHP5 (Written and tested in 5.3, but any version >=5.0.0 should work)
• Basic knowledge of PHP on the command line

Usage

Code:

<?php
// Preferred:
require 'vendor/autoload.php'; // composer
// Alternately:
// include 'path/to/daemon.php';
Firehed\ProcessControl\Daemon::run();
// The rest of your original script

CLI:

php yourscript.php {status|start|stop|restart|reload|kill}

Yes, it's that simple.

Actions

• Status: Check the status of the process. Returns:
  • 0 if running
  • 1 if dead but pidfile is hanging around
  • 3 if stopped
• Start: Start the daemon
• Stop: Stop the daemon gracefully via SIGTERM
• Restart: Stop (if running) and start
• Reload: Send SIGUSR1 to daemon (you need to implement a reload function, see below)
• Kill: Kill the daemon via SIGKILL (kill -9)

Options

None yet. I intend to add configuration for:

• Verbose output
• Synchronous mode (do not daemonize for debugging)
• Log file configuration

Useful tips

• STDOUT (echo, print) is redirected to the log file.
• The "reload" command won't do anything without installing a handler for SIGUSR1. Examples are due shortly.

Known Issues

• STDERR doesn't appear to go anywhere, despite opening a logfile for it.
• The script can't set up "reload" bindings automatically. This is a PHP limitation: "The declare construct can also be used in the global scope, affecting all code following it (however if the file with declare was included then it does not affect the parent file)". http://docs.php.net/manual/en/control-structures.declare.php