my $fork_retry = 10;
my $timelimit = 86400;
my $signal = 0;
my $pid;

local $SIG{'CHLD'} = 'IGNORE';

FORK:
    {
     if ( $pid = fork )
      {
          return($pid);
      }

     else
      {
        die "cannot fork: $!" unless defined $pid;
        open(STDOUT,"> $logfile.out");
        open(STDERR,"> $logfile.err");
        local $SIG{'INT'} = "IGNORE";
        alarm $timelimit;     # set the timeout
        exec ("$cmd");
        die "Unable to exec $cmd : @_\n";
      }

    warn "Unable to fork"."Retrying in $fork_retry seconds.\n";
    sleep $fork_retry;
    redo FORK;
  }