Hi,
the following trick might only work with some versions of Sun JDKs and is not recommended, however:
There is a class called sun.misc.Signal and an interface sun.misc.SignalHandler which does, what you need. But use it with care! The VM uses its own signal handlers and might interfere with yours. There is an option to the VM "-Xrs" which influences how the VM handles signals and which signals it handles by itself.