How to control a Unity app from external command line?

Hi everyone,

I would like to create a Unity server application that does the same as the Unity client-side version (in the webplayer, in an app, et cetera), except for a few additional functions.

The following steps describe how it would work:

1) a user saves settings in the client-side version (e.g. in the webplayer), these settings will be saved in a server database

2) a php script will be triggered when a new entry in the database is made

3) this php script somehow starts a Unity application server-side which can do the same as the client-side version, except for exporting data that can be used elsewhere.

Could anyone point me in the right direction?

Thank you for any feedback!