Rails Talking To Another Application

I have a program that I would like to control via a web interface. The program currently reads its preferences from a file. The program traps the USR1 signal and re-reads the file. I have the Rails app look through the running process list, find the application and send the signal.

This doesn't seem all that great to me. It works, but it doesn't seem elegant. Plus, it wouldn't work on a Windows machine (which isn't too much of a concern).

Is there a better way to do this?

Stephen Gerstacker