I was just thinking if one can't create an Apache module to control the service/daemon ? I know this is a funny way of doing it, but it will allow Apache to selfrestart upon request either via web or internaly calling a function... It's just a tought. I've been using Sudo in other scripts... on top of everything this is one user machine - ie the user is root, and the machine is running Intranet, which means - no Internet access is provided to the computer, which solves the security issues.