diff --git a/nixos/modules/services/logging/syslog-ng.nix b/nixos/modules/services/logging/syslog-ng.nix
index 985b93a5374..65e103ac2ba 100644
--- a/nixos/modules/services/logging/syslog-ng.nix
+++ b/nixos/modules/services/logging/syslog-ng.nix
@@ -85,10 +85,11 @@ in {
       after = [ "multi-user.target" ]; # makes sure hostname etc is set
       serviceConfig = {
         Type = "notify";
+        PIDFile = pidFile;
         StandardOutput = "null";
         Restart = "on-failure";
         ExecStart = "${cfg.package}/sbin/syslog-ng ${concatStringsSep " " syslogngOptions}";
-        ExecReload = "${pkgs.coreutils}/bin/kill -HUP `${pkgs.coreutils}/bin/cat ${pidFile}`";
+        ExecReload = "${pkgs.coreutils}/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID";
       };
     };
   };