Hello! I am trying to write a preforking server and have got a copy of exactly what I need from the Perl cookbook (Chapter 17). After a few teething problems where the server kept forking more and more children (I checked the result of wait in REAPER being greater than -1 before decrementing the number of children left) 
sub REAPER 
{           # takes care of dead children
   $SIG{CHLD} = \&REAPER;
   my $pid = wait;
   if ($pid > -1)
   {
      $children --;
      print "child $pid died, only $children left\n";
      delete $children{$pid};
   }
   else
   {
      $children = 0;
   }
}

[download]
This appears to work, except that the master process does not appear to be being woken up from its sleep when a child dies: 
# And maintain the population.
while (1)
{
   sleep;        # wait for a signal (i.e., child's death)
   print "got woken up by signal\n";
   for ($i = $children; $i < $PREFORK; $i++)
   {
      make_new_child();           # top up the child pool
   }
}

[download]
The master process only appears to be woken up when the last of the children dies - resulting in the master spawning all the children at once - not what I was after. Interestingly, I've copied the script to a Mandrake 9 machine, and found that the sleep is interrupted at the point a child dies. However, I found a different problem there in that my client script fell over with IO::Socket::INET: connect: Cannot assign requested address So, is there a problem with signals on HPUX or is the example given a bit naive? Many thanks

In reply to 100 years sleep on HPUX by yucca15

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