apache - read/write websocket server in php is not wotking

one text

I am running an apache server on a linux machine. Im trying to create a website which has a page that needs asynchronous updates and two-way communication with the server.

Im trying to make this simple file which fires up as an intermediate server for each session the code looks something like this:

<?php

$server = stream_socket_server("tcp://localhost:8090", $errno, $errstr);
if(!$server){
        echo "$errstr ($errno)<br>";
        die();
}
$users = [];

//var_dump($server);

while(true){
        $client = stream_socket_accept($server); // new connection
        echo "new connection<br>";
        array_push($users, $client);
        $pid = pcntl_fork();
        if($pid){
                while(true){
                        $buff='';
                        while(!str_ends_with($buff, "\n\r")){
                                $buff = $buff . fread($client, 1024);
                        }
                        //$len = strlen($buff);
                        foreach($users as $u){  // broadcast
                                fwrite($u, $buff);
                        }
                        if($buff == 'END'){
                                exit(1);
                        }
                        echo "routed<br>";
                }
        }
}

?>

This is supposed to be a basic echo broadcast. it keeps track of new connections and waits for any client to send a message and sends it back to everyone.

the basic idea was that it would listen for a new connection and use fork to handle the read and write processes.

However I've recently learned that fork() does not work on apache and so my question is how can i make this work.