diff --git a/image/services/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.init b/image/services/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.init
index 04f526b..8a33b78 100755
--- a/image/services/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.init
+++ b/image/services/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.init
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 #!/bin/bash
-set -e
+set -em
 
 # If /dev/log is either a named pipe or it was placed there accidentally,
 # e.g. because of the issue documented at https://github.com/phusion/baseimage-docker/pull/25,
diff --git a/image/services/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.shutdown b/image/services/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.shutdown
index 0288004..7046d02 100755
--- a/image/services/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.shutdown
+++ b/image/services/syslog-ng/syslog-ng.shutdown
@@ -20,5 +20,8 @@ syslogng_wait() {
     return $RET
 }
 
-kill $(cat "$PIDFILE")
+if [ -f "$PIDFILE" ]; then
+    kill $(cat "$PIDFILE")
+fi
+
 syslogng_wait 0 $?