How do I stop a PHP script running on the background

Question

I started this process (time.php)

<?php

ignore_user_abort(true); // run script in background
set_time_limit(0);       // run script forever 
$interval = 300;         // do every 1 minute...
do
{ 
    // add the script that has to be ran every 1 minute here
    // ...

    $to      = "[email protected]";
    $subject = "Hello Richie";
    $header  = "From: [email protected]";
    $body    = "Hello Richard,\n\n"
             . "I was just testing this service\n\n "
             . "Thanks! ";

    mail($to, $subject, $body, $header);

    sleep($interval); // wait 5 minutes

} while(true); 
?>

but I now want to stop it. It's sending hundreds of mail to my Gmail a/c. It's on a web server where I cant restart it to kill the process.

Is there a way to execute another file to kill the process, or how do I go about?

Answer 1

If you don't have shell access, then the only way is to ask the server administrater to kill the process.

That being said, there is an easy way to set up a script and enable it to be canceled from any other script on the same server, as follows:

<?php
// at start of script, create a cancelation file

file_put_contents(sys_get_temp_dir().'/myscriptcancelfile','run');

// inside the script loop, for each iteration, check the file

if ( file_get_contents(sys_get_temp_dir().'/myscriptcancelfile') != 'run' ) { 
    exit('Script was canceled') ; 
}

// optional cleanup/remove file after the completion of the loop

unlink(sys_get_temp_dir().'/myscriptcancelfile');

// To cancel/exit the loop from any other script on the same server

file_put_contents(sys_get_temp_dir().'/myscriptcancelfile','stop');

?>