diff --git a/daliuge-engine/run_engine.sh b/daliuge-engine/run_engine.sh
index 9a2268577..aeba52ead 100755
--- a/daliuge-engine/run_engine.sh
+++ b/daliuge-engine/run_engine.sh
@@ -18,10 +18,10 @@ case "$1" in
         exit 1;;
     "dev")
         export VCS_TAG=`git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]'`
-        echo "Running Engine development version in foreground..."
+        echo "Running Engine development version in background..."
         DOCKER_OPTS+="-v ${PWD}/dlg/manager:/root/dlg/lib/python3.8/site-packages/dlg/manager"
-        echo "docker run -ti ${DOCKER_OPTS}  icrar/daliuge-engine:${VCS_TAG}"
-        docker run -ti ${DOCKER_OPTS}  icrar/daliuge-engine:${VCS_TAG} bash
+        echo "docker run -td ${DOCKER_OPTS}  icrar/daliuge-engine:${VCS_TAG}"
+        docker run -td ${DOCKER_OPTS}  icrar/daliuge-engine:${VCS_TAG}
         exit 1;;
     *)
         echo "Usage run_engine.sh <dep|dev>"
diff --git a/daliuge-engine/start_local_managers.sh b/daliuge-engine/start_local_managers.sh
index 22255e0f4..173988f58 100755
--- a/daliuge-engine/start_local_managers.sh
+++ b/daliuge-engine/start_local_managers.sh
@@ -1,6 +1,2 @@
 # Script starts a node manager and a data island manager on the local node. Useful mainly for testing.
-
-# for some reason the -d flag does no work with the dim always leaves a defunct process
-# docker exec daliuge-engine bash -c 'dlg nm -vvd --no-dlm -H 0.0.0.0 --dlg-path=/var/dlg_home/code -w /var/dlg_home/workspace'
-docker exec -ti daliuge-engine bash -c 'dlg nm -vv --no-dlm -H 0.0.0.0 --dlg-path=/var/dlg_home/code -w /var/dlg_home/workspace > /tmp/nm.log 2>&1 &'
-docker exec -ti daliuge-engine bash -c 'dlg dim -N localhost -vv -H 0.0.0.0 -w /var/dlg_home/workspace > /tmp/dim.log 2>&1 &'
+curl -d '{"nodes": ["localhost"]}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" -X POST http://localhost:9000/managers/dataisland
\ No newline at end of file