Ok, I think I'm going nuts. I simply want to startup a Java Service like so: daemon --pidfile=$PIDFILE --user $USER "cd $WORKING_DIR && /usr/bin/java $DAEMON_ARGS >/dev/null 2>&1 &" I can get it to startup alrite, but the litte "thingy" is that I have no way of getting the process ID of the started service to put in the PIDFILE, in order for me to later on be able to stop the service. (I can have up to 5 of these Java services running, each needing a different pidfile). This is a BREEZE to do in Debian/Ubuntu with start-stop-daemon! Please help! TIA /Rob