Question

I’m very new to socket programming, but do lot of coding with php.
I have tested some socket server example codes and worked fine with localhost. I use CLI to run the server. But my concern is how do I run the socket server .php file at my hosting server? Do hosting providers normally give access to CLI to run the servers? How do I make sure my server is always running? If the hosting server is restarted, what happens to my server? In case, my server crashes (whatever reason), do I have to run it manually?
Can someone help?

Answer 1

I don’t know if your provider give you ssh access. Some provider do it but this are managed server or root server.

Then you can run your script over the CLI.

When you can run your server over CLI and when you have enough rights you can insert the script to the runlevel. And there is something that is called “shebang“. With this you can give your script direct the php interpreter and run the script without the php command before.

php test.php or /usr/bin/php testScript.php

You can run direct run your script with test.php or name your script only testScript.

When you put your script to /usr/local/bin (for debian) you can run it everytime over the command like the php command.

Edit: I have forgotten something. For this solution you have to copy the /etc/init.d/skeleton to /etc/init.d/runPHPSocketServer for example and change the script values on top. Then you can insert it to the runlevel.

#: testScript or runPHPSocketServer start

When the script is under a executable directory you can insert it to your system runlevel.

#: update-rc.d runPHPSocketServer defaults

So you see there are some solution but for the most solutions you need ssh access.