diff -r -u -N amavisd-snapshot-20011031.tmp/README.milter amavisd-snapshot-20011031/README.milter
--- amavisd-snapshot-20011031.tmp/README.milter	Sat May 19 09:07:52 2001
+++ amavisd-snapshot-20011031/README.milter	Wed Dec 19 17:18:13 2001
@@ -29,13 +29,19 @@
 
 To start amavisd with milter support, use this sequence:
 
-rm -rf /var/amavis/amavis-milter.sock
-nohup /usr/sbin/amavis-milter -p /var/amavis/amavis-milter.sock &
+/usr/sbin/amavis-milter -D -p /var/amavis/amavis-milter.sock &
 /usr/sbin/amavisd
 
-amavis-milter does not itself go into background currently, so nohup is
-required. Watch /var/log/messages for messages from amavis-milter, and
-/var/log/maillog for messages from amavisd.
+The -D option is necessary to cause amavis-milter to put itself into the
+background correctly and act as a daemon.  In the future, this may become
+the default behavior.
+
+You can watch for messages from amavisd in /var/log/maillog (or wherever
+syslog is configured to send mail.* messages on your system).  If you
+specify the optional -d <n> flag to amavis-milter, where 1<=n<=4,
+amavis-milter will log to /var/amavis/amavis.client in addition to sending
+messages to /var/log/messages (or wherever syslog is configured to send
+most error messages).
 
 References:
 [1] http://www.sendmail.com/partner/resources/development/milter_api/installation.html
Binary files amavisd-snapshot-20011031.tmp/amavis/.amavis-milter.c.swp and amavisd-snapshot-20011031/amavis/.amavis-milter.c.swp differ
diff -r -u -N amavisd-snapshot-20011031.tmp/amavis/amavis-milter.c amavisd-snapshot-20011031/amavis/amavis-milter.c
--- amavisd-snapshot-20011031.tmp/amavis/amavis-milter.c	Wed Dec 19 17:09:11 2001
+++ amavisd-snapshot-20011031/amavis/amavis-milter.c	Wed Dec 19 17:28:30 2001
@@ -61,6 +61,7 @@
 
 #define TEMPLATE "/amavis-milter-XXXXXXXX"
 #define DEBUGFILE "/tmp/virdebug"
+#define DEVNULL "/dev/null"
 
 typedef struct llstrct {
     char *str;
@@ -671,7 +672,11 @@
 char *argv[];
 {
     int c;
-    const char *args = "p:d:";
+    const char *args = "p:d:D";
+
+    pid_t pid;
+    int AM_DAEMON = 0;
+    int devnull;
 
     umask(0077);
 
@@ -683,6 +688,14 @@
 		mydebug(DBG_FATAL, "Illegal conn: %s", optarg);
 		exit(EX_USAGE);
 	    }
+	    /* Unlink any existing file that might be in place of
+	     * the socket we want to create.  This might not exactly
+	     * be safe, or friendly, but I'll deal with that later.
+	     * Be nice and issue a warning if we have a problem, but
+	     * other than that, ignore it. */
+	    if ((unlink(optarg)) < 0) {
+		 mydebug(DBG_WARN, "unlink(): %s: %s", optarg, strerror(errno));
+	    }
 	    (void) smfi_setconn(optarg);
 	    break;
 	case 'd':
@@ -701,6 +714,9 @@
 		    break;
 	    }
 	    break;
+	case 'D':
+	    AM_DAEMON = 1;
+	    break;
 	default:
 	    break;
 	}
@@ -709,6 +725,69 @@
 	mydebug(DBG_FATAL, "smfi_register failed");
 	exit(EX_UNAVAILABLE);
     }
+
+    /* See if we're supposed to become a daemonized process */
+    if (AM_DAEMON == 1) {
+
+	/* Fork ourselves into the background, and see if it worked */
+	if ((pid = fork()) > 0) {
+
+	    mydebug(DBG_INFO, "amavis-milter forked into background");
+	    exit(0);
+
+	} else if (pid == -1) {
+
+	    mydebug(DBG_FATAL, "fork() returned error: %s", strerror(errno));
+	    exit(EX_UNAVAILABLE);
+
+	}
+
+	/* Open /dev/null read-only */
+	if ((devnull = open(DEVNULL, O_RDONLY, 0)) < 0) {
+	     mydebug(DBG_FATAL, "Could not open %s: %s", DEVNULL,
+		     strerror(errno));
+	     exit(EX_UNAVAILABLE);
+	}
+
+	/* Reassign STDIN to /dev/null */
+	close(STDIN_FILENO);
+	if ((dup2(devnull, STDIN_FILENO)) < 0) {
+	     mydebug(DBG_FATAL, "Could not reassign STDIN to %s: %s",
+		     DEVNULL, strerror(errno));
+	     exit(EX_UNAVAILABLE);
+	}
+
+	/* Close and re-open /dev/null write-only */
+	close(devnull);
+	if ((devnull = open(DEVNULL, O_WRONLY, 0)) < 0) {
+	     mydebug(DBG_FATAL, "Could not open %s: %s", DEVNULL,
+		     strerror(errno));
+	     exit(EX_UNAVAILABLE);
+	}
+
+	/* Reassign STDOUT to /dev/null */
+	close(STDOUT_FILENO);
+	if ((dup2(devnull, STDOUT_FILENO)) < 0) {
+	     mydebug(DBG_FATAL, "Could not reassign STDIN to %s: %s",
+		     DEVNULL, strerror(errno));
+	     exit(EX_UNAVAILABLE);
+	}
+
+	/* Reassign STDERR to /dev/null */
+	close(STDERR_FILENO);
+	if ((dup2(devnull, STDERR_FILENO)) < 0) {
+	     mydebug(DBG_FATAL, "Could not reassign STDIN to %s: %s",
+		     DEVNULL, strerror(errno));
+	     exit(EX_UNAVAILABLE);
+	}
+
+	/* Finally, close /dev/null */
+	close(devnull);
+
+
+    }
+
+    /* hand control over to libmilter */
     return smfi_main();
 }