Yep, saw that too but I guessed that the OP transferred the script to windows when I read "service ... start"

Of course, now that I think about it, some (all?) modern linux distributions use a GUI for services so you're probably right and I tried to answer the wrong question. Certainly wouldn't be the first time.

Hi, thanks for the replies. Yes I think its that stdin/out are not available to the service. The command is basically an `snmpwalk` that should run and return the result which my script deals with. I've also tried using in/out pipes while getting another file to run the snmp, but the syswrite isnt sending anything. Arghhh sorry for the vagueness I haven't the code with me atm. Dave.