restart apache using php??

tupawk

Is there a way to restart apache using a php script and still be able to output some static page to the browser first?

I've tried catching SIGTERM and apache restarts successfully but you get an ugly connection lost error in the browser. I tried sening a refresh header before restarting apache but that didnt work. 🙁

Like this:

Header("Refresh: 5; URL=http://".$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']."/index.php");
exec("/usr/bin/sudo $cmd");

Any suggestions???

bradgrafelman

Try using Output Buffering, send the header, then ob_flush() and flush() (in that order) the header to the browser, then run the command.

EDIT: Also, I'm no Unix expert, but wouldn't that command cause the Apache module to wait for the commands finish (and therefore in the process, be killed before completion) ? What if you added a '&' onto the command, so that it essentialy forks into the background, i.e.

exec("/usr/bin/sudo $cmd &");

tupawk

Tried adding the output buffering and still the same behavior...

Any other tips to try?

Thanks for the help so far.

EDIT: Yeah, the & would put it into the background but it still wont help because apache is restarting and php needs apache when used through the browser. The currently running php script would die then anyway.

I would think sending headers to a browser would have worked before restarting apache... Especially with the output buffering since you are supposedly force flushing all output to the browser at that time.

mtmosier

PHP may still block waiting for output from backgrounded processes. I use nohup to run a shell command independantly of my php.

`sudo nohup $cmd > /dev/null 2>&1 &`

Then you might get into a race condition. Does the script finish executing first, or the apache process get killed off first? You might make $cmd a shell script with a sleep. (Which technically doesn't fix the race condition, but makes it less likely to bite you.)

MarkR

If you use

apachectl graceful

rather than

apachectl restart

Then it should wait for currently in-progress requests to complete, which presumably includes completing the PHP page execution.

Mark

tupawk

Restarting apache using the "graceful" option did the trick. Thanks for everyones help.