> Use python instead. Or perl. You can substitute any parameter name you want from /proc/cmdline, in place of the string 'ip' in the example given earlier: ip=`cat /proc/cmdline |perl -e 'if (<> =~ /\sip=(.*?)\s/) {print $1}'` ESXIP=`cat /proc/cmdline |perl -e 'if (<> =~ /\sESXIP=(.*?)\s/) {print $1}'` -Ed