made the CGI run the processing script on the server with a call to "system ('command &') to put it in the background

The & will indeed place the processing script in the background. Unfortunately as soon as the CGI process ends, so will your processing script as it will receive a SIGHUP. To prevent this, you can use the nohup command to ensure your processing script is immune to hangups (man nohup).

-- vek --

In reply to Re: running another script without waiting by vek
in thread running another script without waiting by crammed_in

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