My eventual goal is to have one 'logging server', receiving logs from all of the other servers around here, and parsing/pushing them into a mysql database. I've got the general topology setup and working - and a perlscript that syslog-ng is pumping the logs to - which in turn is doing the mysql writing. Working fine, except I'd like to control the amount of buffering before it hits the perl program. I have '$| = 1;' in my perl prog, so perl isn't doing the buffering.. it's gotta be syslog-ng. sync(0) is set - and appears to work fine to flat files - just not to a forked program. In fact, I don't really even see it start to write out the buffer to the perl prog until I HUP the syslog-ng process. (which obviously isn't going to help me in the long run.) Any tips/suggestions are appreciated. -Mahlon -- Mahlon Smith InternetCDS http://www.internetcds.com