BEGIN {
     # allow script to be reinitialized with a HUP signal
     $SIG{HUP} = sub { $HUP = 1; warn "Caught HUP\n" };
}

# main loop
while ( 1 ) {

    $conn = accept_new_conn();

    # check if we have been HUPPED
    if ( $HUP ) {
      REHUP:
        # reset the flag
        $HUP = 0;
        warn "***** Widget reinitializing\n";
        do_disconnect();
        do_init();

        # now it is possible, but unlikely that we get another SIG HUP while
        # we are performing our reinit routines so we need to redo this
        # stuff if that occurs, otherwise we will be partially reinitialised
      goto REHUP if $HUP;

    }

    # more code here

}

##</code><code>##

apache ALL=NOPASSWD:/home/www/utility/sendHUP.pl

##</code><code>##

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

# sendHUP.pl

# this script need to be run as root, to do this we add an entry to 
# /etc/sudoers so that apache can run it (you edit using visudo)
# visudo -f /etc/sudoers
# add this line 
# apache ALL=NOPASSWD:/devel/www/utility/sendHUP.pl
# call as system('sudo', '/devel/www/utility/sendHUP.pl');

$|++;
#use strict;
use Fcntl;
use POSIX qw(setsid);

# we really really don't want to half HUP the widgets
# this can potentially occur so we ignore INT and TERM SIGs
BEGIN { $SIG{INT} = $SIG{TERM} = sub { warn $SIG{INT} ? "*****sendHUP caught INT" : "*****sendHUP caught TERM" } }

my $PROGRAM = 'widget.pl';
my @ps = `ps -C $PROGRAM`;
@ps = map { m/(\d+)/; $1 } grep { /\Q$PROGRAM\E/ } @ps;

# now demonize it
defined(my $pid = fork)   or die "Can't fork: $!";
exit 0 if $pid;
chdir '/'                 or die "Can't chdir to /: $!";
umask 0;
setsid()                  or die "Can't start a new session: $!";

for ( @ps ) {
    (kill HUP, $_) or warn "***** Failed to HUP $_\n";
}
my $time = gmtime();
warn "[$time] Sent SIGHUP to $PROGRAM @ps\n";
exit 0;