i have added a couple of items to the e-smith-admin panel easy as pie :-) i can run a command eg esmith::util::backgroundCommand (0, "/etc/rc.d/init.d/newserver restart"); if i try to run a shellscript it may run the first command, but doesn't do any more eg. if grep | then echo elif ... can i use the script ? if i can i'll go dangerously close to packaging a rpm e-smith-flaky-0.1 stephen