'outside' as in my PC. THe perl script itself is going to be on my PC, which is wehre my CGI/web application is. So therefore , as I said before, I need the script to somehow access the AIX machine from my PC and access that file and use that information for my program. thanks a lot for all ur help, I just need any kinda hints for me as to where to look. Is this related to SOCKETs client/server communciation?> I have no idea..thanks..kelvin