Use start-stop-daemon for a PHP server

daemoninit.dPHP

I'm working on a socket server written in PHP.
This part of the work is done but now I need to run it as a daemon.

For this I've tried to use start-stop-daemon but it doesn't work. My server is running Debian.

To simplify, my question is why does the following command not run my daemon or how can I debug it?

start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --background --make-pidfile --pidfile /var/run/server-ticket.pid --exec /usr/local/zend/bin/php /var/www/server/consultpilot/ServerTicket.php >> /var/log/server-ticket.log 2>> /var/log/server-ticket.log </dev/null

The following is the full script, based on Till Klampaeckel's tutorial:

#! /bin/sh

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: ServerTicket
# Required-Start: $all
# Required-Stop: $all
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: starts ServerTicket
# Description: starts ServerTicket using start-stop-daemon
### END INIT INFO

# Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables
. /lib/init/vars.sh

PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
DAEMON=/usr/local/zend/bin/php
DAEMON_OPTS="/var/www/server/consultpilot/ServerTicket.php"
NAME=server-ticket
DESC="Daemon for the Server Ticket from DiffMed"
PIDFILE="/var/run/${NAME}.pid"
LOGFILE="/var/log/${NAME}.log"
QUIET="--quiet"
START_OPTS="--start ${QUIET} --background --make-pidfile --pidfile ${PIDFILE} --exec ${DAEMON} ${DAEMON_OPTS}"
STOP_OPTS="--stop --pidfile ${PIDFILE}"    

test -x $DAEMON || exit 0

set -e

case "$1" in
    start)
        echo -n "Starting $DESC: "
        start-stop-daemon $START_OPTS >> "${LOGFILE}" 2>> "${LOGFILE}" </dev/null
        echo "$NAME."       
        ;;
    stop)
        echo -n "Stopping $DESC: "
        start-stop-daemon $STOP_OPTS
        echo "$NAME."
        rm -f $PIDFILE
        ;;
    restart|force-reload)
        echo -n "Restarting $DESC: "
        start-stop-daemon $STOP_OPTS
        sleep 1
        start-stop-daemon $START_OPTS
        echo "$NAME."
        ;;
*)
    N=/etc/init.d/$NAME
    echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2
    exit 1
    ;;
esac

exit 0

For information, when I start the process, there is no return.
But when I finish it, it tells me that no process corresponds:

root:/var/run$ service server-ticket start
Starting Daemon for the Server Ticket from DiffMed: result : 0
server-ticket.
root:/var/run$ service server-ticket stop
Stopping Daemon for the Server Ticket from DiffMed: start-stop-daemon: warning: failed to kill 5772: No such process
1 pids were not killed
No process in pidfile '/var/run/server-ticket.pid' found running; none killed.

Best Answer

From the start-stop-daemon(8) man page:

-x, --exec executable Check for processes that are instances of this executable (according to /proc/pid/exe)

Which means it will check for instances of /usr/local/zend/bin/php, and if it finds them not start a new process. Provided you have the magic cookie of:

#! /usr/local/zend/bin/php

on the first line of your /var/www/server/consultpilot/ServerTicket.php script, and make sure it is executable with chmod, then you can change it to:

DAEMON=/var/www/server/consultpilot/ServerTicket.php

and get the results you would expect.

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