Try doing a "double-fork" to detach the long-running process from the Web server. Something like: 
if (my $pid1 = fork())
{
  wait;
  return;
}
elsif (defined($pid1))
{
  # Child
  if (my $pid2 = fork())
  {
    # Still Child
    exit(0);
  }
  elsif (defined($pid2))
  {
    # Grandchild
    exec(...);
  }
  else
  {
    die "Fork error: $!\n";
  }
}
else
{
  die "Fork error: $!\n";
}

[download]

You may also want to do things like POSIX::setsid and setpgrp. Search the archives for daemon for some sample code.

In reply to Re: CGI fork() Difficulty by sgifford
in thread CGI fork() Difficulty by lacertus

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.