I need a really simple perl script that runs certain program (that never returns, a background process) and ends immediately after that.

My problem is that the perl script never really ends. I've tried threads, fork, and whatnot, but there is always some zombie or defunct process, or just keeps running in 'ps'.

Normally this shouldn't be a problem... I can afford a little stray process every now and then... But this script needs to be executed via cgi, and if it doesn't end "gracefully", the server never sends the reply to the client.

This is the best I've done so far (without warnings and ignoring errors, just the main stuff): 

#!/usr/bin/perl
$SIG{CHLD} = 'IGNORE';
open STDIN, '/dev/null/';
open STDOUT, '>/dev/null/';
open STDERR, '>/dev/null/';
exit if fork();
chdir '../working/dir';
system './program &';

[download]

Any advice is greatle appreciated.

In reply to run a background process by Anonymous Monk

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