We've been working on a project recently where we wanted to run a background CLI script that gets fired from PHP. For example, a user presses a button on your frontend interface that fires off a PHP script that runs in the background for a while. The user can then continue using the site, rather than waiting for the script to finish. You’ll need…

run-background-process.php

function run_background_process( $file )
{
	if ( is_windows() )
	{
		// create command object
		$objShell = new COM( 'WScript.Shell' );
		
		// run windows command 
		$objShell->Run( 
			$strCommand = sprintf( 'php %s.php', $file ), 
			$intWindowStyle = 7,  // the active window remains active.
			$bWaitOnReturn = FALSE 
		);
	}
	else
	{
		// run command, and continue ('-q' requires output to be /dev/null)
		$cmd = sprintf( 'nohup php -q %s.php > /dev/null 2>&1 &', $file );
		
	    	// run exec function
		$result = exec( $cmd, $output, $return_status );
		
		// popen and pclose also works
		#pclose( popen( $cmd, 'r' ) );
	};
};