sub Fork {
    my $pid;
    my $retry = 0;

    #   The following loop structure is responsible for performing a fork safely - 
    #   If the core fork function returns a valid process identification value, 
    #   this is returned and this subroutine is exited.  If however, an error 
    #   occurs, an attempt is made to retry the fork, if the error message is the 
    #   result of no additional processes.  This is attempted $RETRY times after 
    #   sleeping for $SLEEP seconds before execution is abandoned.

    FORK: {
        if ( defined( $pid = fork ) ) {
            return $pid;
        } elsif ( $! =~ /No more process/i ) {
            if ( ++$retry > ( $RETRY || 3 ) ) {
                croak( __PACKAGE__, '::Fork - Cannot fork process, retry count exceeded - ', $! );
            }

            sleep ( $SLEEP || 5 );
            redo FORK;
        } else {
            croak( __PACKAGE__, '::Fork - Cannot fork process - ', $! );
        }
    }
}