This works:
private function _startDevelopmentServer($pidfile)
{
$cmd = 'cd ../../public && php -S 127.0.0.1:8027 index.php';
$outputfile = '/dev/null';
shell_exec(sprintf("%s > %s 2>&1 & echo $! >> %s", $cmd, $outputfile, $pidfile));
sleep(1);
}
private function _killDevelopmentServer($pidfile)
{
if (file_exists($pidfile)) {
$pids = file($pidfile);
foreach ($pids as $pid) {
shell_exec('kill -9 ' . $pid);
}
unlink($pidfile);
}
}