my $ppid = `/sbin/pidof pppd`; # cannot be 0 so logic works
# $ppid is empty unless pppd is running.
# Having the pid lets you signal the daemon
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You can also poke around in /proc for all sorts of interesting system info. All you need to do is treat it as ordinary files and dirs.

After Compline,
Zaxo

Update: my $pstart=`/bin/ps -C pppd -o pid=,start_time=`; will return space delimited pid and start time. The time format shifts from date to time for young processes, so parsing is difficult.