I have a GPS unit that can send data over a TCP connection, but I don't have the ability to modify the message that it sends so it would come to my server in the form of an HTTP request - it can only send a message in a predefined format.
So, I have the following questions:
1) Is it possible to have Apache handle a TCP connection that doesn't come in the form of an HTTP request, and have the message that is sent be processed by a PHP script?
2) If #1 isn't possible, how would you recommend I handle the data being sent to my server?
I will potentially have hundreds, if not thousands, of these GPS units sending data to my server so I need an efficient way to handle all of the connections coming in (which is why I wanted Apache or some other production worthy server to handle the TCP connections). I would like to be able to deal with the message sent over the connection with PHP since that is what the rest of my application runs on, and I will need to insert the data sent into a database (and PHP is really good at doing that kind of thing).
In case it matters, the GPS unit can send data over a UDP connection, but from what I have read Apache doesn't work with UDP connections.
Any suggestions would be welcome.