I don't think this is the right way to solve this. It would be better to avoid the passing of variables back and forth and the background functionality in run.sh script and control it solely from the init.d script or whatever. Then change run.sh to a) remember the PID of the java process b) install a trap that will simply forward the signal you are interested to the child java process See http://learnlinux.tsf.org.za/courses/build/shell-scripting/ch12s03.html View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3976536#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...