You make a system call to the at unix command (see man at).

In our context, if you execute at now <"your_command" the at command returns immediately, so you can terminate your cgi script but the command "your_command" is executed in another process that is not a child of your process, but of cron deamon. Actually at schedules a single execution of your_command via crond.

Careful with that hash Eugene.

In reply to Re^3: system command not working after connection with cgi breaks by psini
in thread system command not working after connection with cgi breaks by advait

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