I wrote this for someone on stackoverflow. Throwing it up on github also seemed like a good idea too.
For more widespread compatibility, I did not include the capability to set the process name.
Process Control Extensions will need to be enabled on the target PHP installation.
A word of caution: PHP was meant to die. Meaning, the language was mean to execute for a few seconds then exit. Though, garbage cleanup in PHP has come a long way, be careful. Monitor processes for unexpected memory consumption, or other oddities. Watch everything like a hawk for a while before "set it and forget it" phases, and even then, still check the processes once in a while or have them automatically notify if something becomes amiss.
The MIT License. See LICENSE.txt for details