Bug #10744: session_start() "serializes" exec

From: fperillo@katamail.com Operating system: Linux Mandrake 7.2 PHP version: 4.0.4pl1 PHP Bug Type: *Session related Bug description: session_start() "serializes" exec Try this in a script: <?php exec( "/bin/sleep 30 >/dev/null 2>&1 </dev/null &" ) ; echo "Done !!" ; ?> Now call it from the browser several time (Reload button). If you type a ps ax command you will see several "sleep 30" processes. Wait all the processes to stop. Now put session_start() as the first line. Press RELOAD: it completes OK. Now press RELOAD again: it hangs !!! It waits for the sleep to terminate before starting the next !! So if you press RELOAD 10 times you need to wait 300 seconds !! Is it a normal behaviour ? How can I have a process completely in the background ? Francesco PS: I tried to put the nohup in the exec string with no success -- Edit Bug report at: http://bugs.php.net/?id=10744&edit=1