It seems like on Thu, Jul 06, 2000 at 08:30:16PM -0700, Craig White scribbled: Orig Msg> I read man ping and found that I can ping address -i30 -q but I want that Orig Msg> process in the background so I get a shell prompt so I add an ampersand to Orig Msg> the line to make it... Orig Msg> Orig Msg> ping (address) -i30 -q & Orig Msg> Orig Msg> but it still doesn't return to the shell prompt unless I hit return a second Orig Msg> time - why? can anyone clue in the clueless? Is this a reasonable way to do Orig Msg> this? Orig Msg> make a crontab entry: 30 * * * * /usr/local/bin/chkisdn.sh use a script like this and name it chkisdn.sh: ======================CUT HERE=============== #!/bin/bash if /bin/ping -c20 .com | grep time= then echo "ISDN is Up and Running!" else cd /usr/local/isdn; isdn-stop /usr/bin/sleep 10 echo " ISDN Restarted!!! " cd /usr/local/isdn; isdn-start fi ======================CUT HERE=============== Unless you have MAILTO="" in your crontab this will mail the echo information to root on a regular interval so you know that everything is ok or if it went down, when. Make sure you edit this to point to any required scripts already made to start/stop ISDN. YMMV. Jean Francois Sends... President & CEO - MagusNet, Inc., MagusNet.com, MagusNet.Gilbert.AZ.US Director Of Managed Services - OpNIX,Inc., www.opnix.com OpNIX - Simply Better Bandwidth 602-770-JLF1 - Cellular, ICQ: 8137851