Try this version of astres.sh and tell us if it panics or not. #! /bin/bash if [ -e /var/run/asterisk.ctl ] then killall safe_asterisk service asterisk stop sleep 2 service asterisk start else echo "Asterisk is not running!" fi ================================================ I tried it 5 times and 4 of them worked. The 5th time, asterisk died (I had two (or three) remote PuTTY windows open at the time) It went into a repeated restart mode - I think this is different than the sound thread problem that led to the kernel panic. Somehow, mpg123 that I have on my system seems to have been a factor - I did not notice if the system was playing sound at the time I did the restart. I don't think so. (not everything is shown below, I tried some astdn and astup commands too) [root@ke2n ~]# astres_new.sh Shutting down asterisk: [ OK ] Starting asterisk: [ OK ] [root@ke2n ~]# Asterisk ended with exit status 1 Asterisk died with code 1. Automatically restarting Asterisk. mpg123: no process killed Asterisk ended with exit status 1 Asterisk died with code 1. Automatically restarting Asterisk. mpg123: no process killed Asterisk ended with exit status 1 Asterisk died with code 1. Automatically restarting Asterisk. mpg123: no process killed Asterisk ended with exit status 1 Asterisk died with code 1. Automatically restarting Asterisk. astres_new.sh Shutting down asterisk: [FAILED] Starting asterisk: [ OK ] [root@ke2n ~]# Asterisk ended with exit status 1 =========================================================================== Asterisk was not running at this point so I rebooted the machine. ================================================================== I did learn that it is not necessary to restart things just to load a modified config file Use "rpt reload" for that... Ken 27021 KE2N/R