I'm using syslog-ng 1.6.2 which I believe from the changelog supports the template option for the program driver. When I comment/uncomment the line from the config file below the destination will work with the template options commented out, but not with them uncommented. destination d_add_message { program("/path/to/my/test.pl" #template("$HOST $MESSAGE") template_escape(no) ); }; No parse errors are reported when syslog-ng starts. I have googled for examples of correct usage (although I cannot get through to the faq site at present) and cannot see anything wrong with the above, although I assume the problem is with the conf file definition. Jim Mozley