Running a script where you append the errors to file and use nohup

Question

The script works!

First I type this in my CLI: php worker.php >>/home/xxx/log 2>&1 Then, I want it to run as its own process or whatever, so I add an & at the end, like this: php worker.php >>/home/xxx/log 2>&1 &

But now the script is never executed, because nothing is appended to /home/xxx/log and when I check ps -fux the script is still there.

One thing I don't understand is that when I run that last command I get this:

xxx@xxx:/path$ php worker.php >>/home/xxx/log 2>&1 &
[1] 10659

Later on when I try to logout of the shell it tells me this:

xxx@xxx:/path$ logout
There are stopped jobs.

[1]+  Stopped                 php worker.php >> /home/xxx/log 2>&1

What is going on here? All I want is to run a script in the background and append all output to a file.

Thanks!

EDIT:

Here's an example.

user@box:~/nohuptest$ vim worker.php
user@box:~/nohuptest$ touch log
user@box:~/nohuptest$ php worker.php >> log 2>&1 &
[1] 31523
user@box:~/nohuptest$ cat log

[1]+  Stopped                 php worker.php >> log 2>&1
user@box:~/nohuptest$ php worker.php >> log 2>&1 &
[2] 31626
user@box:~/nohuptest$ cat log

[2]+  Stopped                 php worker.php >> log 2>&1
user@box:~/nohuptest$
user@box:~/nohuptest$ cat worker.php
<?php
echo "hello world\n";
?>
user@box:~/nohuptest$

Answer 1

I think there must be a typo or something somewhere. What you are describing should work perfectly:

$ cat worker.php
<?
echo "hello world\n"
?>
$ php worker.php >> log 2>&1 &
[1] 16353
$ cat log
hello world
$ php worker.php >> log 2>&1 &
$ cat log
hello world
hello world

Could you try with this example and let us know if it works?

---

The [1] 16353 is just bash telling you that it has launched the job in the background with a process ID of 16353.

Answer 2

My guess is that your program opens the tty. It may not be you who do that but PHP itself.

Try:

php worker.php </dev/null >>/home/xxx/log 2>&1 &

If that does not work you can always run it in tmux/screen:

tmux [enter]
php worker.php </dev/null >>/home/xxx/log 2>&1
[CTRL-b][d]

You can probably also run it using script:

echo "php worker.php >>/home/xxx/log 2>&1" | script &

Answer 3

I found the solution.

php script.php [args] </dev/null >>/path/to/log 2>&1 &

PHP was waiting for an input... I have no idea if I can fix this in the php.ini file, but for now that works...