I typically use a variation of this 'daemonize' code taken from
perlipc. This sets up the script's environment and disassociates it from the caller entirely.
sub daemonize {
chdir '/' or die "Can't chdir to /: $!";
open STDIN, '/dev/null' or die "Can't read /dev/null: $!";
open STDOUT, '>/dev/null'
or die "Can't write to /dev/nul
+l: $!";
defined(my $pid = fork) or die "Can't fork: $!";
exit if $pid;
setsid or die "Can't start a new session: $!";
open STDERR, '>&STDOUT' or die "Can't dup stdout: $!";
}
You could also open STDOUT to point to, say, a log file here. Or a tied filehandle passing its data to syslog.