title: Is it acceptable to fork a PHP script to continue email processing and to return data to the user?
body: <p>I'm adding email functionality to an existing website and I am trying to integrate it in a way that requires the least user wait time.</p>
  
  <p>My latest plan is to fork a user's request when the application gets to sending the actual email so I can return a page the user with a message saying their message is sending. I want to prevent long delays resulting from a user request requiring many separate emails to be sent.</p>
  
  <p>I have considered (and even implemented) a cron job solution, but I think it's too much work to setup -- I'd like to be able plunk this on a Linux box and not have to worry about setting up cron jobs.</p>
  
  <p>Other than issues with creating a new database connection and closing out the user's session, is there anything that screams "don't do it this way" before I manage emails with <code>pcntl_fork?</code> Are there benefits to a cron job over forking I'm not seeing?</p>