perlipc has some stuff you may want to try :

Complete Dissociation of Child from Parent

In some cases (starting server processes, for instance) you'll want to
+ complete dissociate the child process from the parent. The easiest w
+ay is to use:

use POSIX qw(setsid);
    setsid()            or die "Can't start a new session: $!";

However, you may not be on POSIX. The following process is reported to
+ work on most Unixish systems. Non-Unix users should check their Your
+_OS::Process module for other solutions.

    * Open /dev/tty and use the TIOCNOTTY ioctl on it. See tty(4) for 
+details.

    * Change directory to /

    * Reopen STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR so they're not connected to the
+ old tty.

    * Background yourself like this:

fork && exit;

    * Ignore hangup signals in case you're running on a shell that doe
+sn't automatically no-hup you:

$SIG{HUP} = 'IGNORE';       # or whatever you'd like
[download]

---

The docs are a little different than an eariler version I found on the Net, so give it a try and see if that solves your problem. If not, look at the perlipc manpage excerpted from the Activestate's Perl UNIX user's e-mail list for a longer program.

----Asim, known to some as Woodrow.

Edit: chipmunk 2001-11-08