Many thanks for your comments! I will implement what I can from your suggestions. Unfortunately, I'm operating in an extremely rigid environment that I do not have much control over. I cannot add any additional modules to the environment, I can only use the standard modules loaded with Perl 5.8.0. This script is meant to be a template that every agent on my team can use on any system we support, but it has to be able to work on any one of 900 systems by simply dropping it into place. We don't have the authority to add software to the environment. With that in mind, do you have any more recommendations?