You should check out HTTP::Daemon from CPAN. And here are a couple Web Techniques columns that should be what your looking for. Col23 and Col24.

I agree with what metlhed_ said if you want to play with Perl and write a solution on your own.

Otherwise - save yourself some head-ache and try something like thttpd: http://www.acme.com/software/thttpd/ It's a great program, and actually fun to setup and play with.

Good luck,
{NULE}
--
http://www.nule.org

This was an interesting problem, so I put together a program that is both a telnet chat server and an HTTP server. The HTTP server returns a log of recent chatter on the telnet server.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;

use CGI qw(:standard);               # For HTML building functions.
use POE;
use POE::Component::Server::HTTP;    # For the web interface.

use POE::Component::Server::TCP;     # For the telnet interface.

sub MAX_LOG_LENGTH () { 50 }
my @chat_log;

### Start the web server.

POE::Component::Server::HTTP->new
  ( Port => 32080,
    ContentHandler => { "/"    => \&web_handler },
    Headers        => { Server => 'See http://poe.perl.org/?POE_Cookbo
+ok' },
  );

### Start the chat server.

POE::Component::Server::TCP->new
  ( Alias => "chat_server",
    Port               => 32081,
    InlineStates       => { send => \&handle_send },
    ClientConnected    => \&client_connected,
    ClientError        => \&client_error,
    ClientDisconnected => \&client_disconnected,
    ClientInput        => \&client_input,
  );

### Run the servers together, and exit when they are done.

$poe_kernel->run();
exit 0;

### Handlers for the web server.  These functions are commented at
### http://poe.perl.org/?POE_Cookbook/Web_Server_With_Components

sub web_handler {
    my ( $request, $response ) = @_;

    # Build the response.
    $response->code(RC_OK);
    $response->push_header( "Content-Type", "text/html" );

    my $count   = @chat_log;
    my $content =
      start_html("Last $count messages.") . h1("Last $count messages."
+);

    if ($count) {
        $content .= ul( li( \@chat_log ) );
    }
    else {
        $content .= p("Nothing has been said yet.");
    }

    $content .= end_html();
    $response->content($content);

    # Signal that the request was handled okay.
    return RC_OK;
}

### Handlers for the chat server.  These functions are commented at
### http://poe.perl.org/?POE_Cookbook/Chat_Server

my %users;

sub broadcast {
    my ( $sender, $message ) = @_;

    # Log it for the web.  This is the only part that's different from
    # the basic chat server.
    push @chat_log, "$sender $message";
    shift @chat_log if @chat_log > MAX_LOG_LENGTH;

    # Send it to everyone.
    foreach my $user ( keys %users ) {
        if ( $user == $sender ) {
            $poe_kernel->post( $user => send => "You $message" );
        }
        else {
            $poe_kernel->post( $user => send => "$sender $message" );
        }
    }
}

sub handle_send {
    my ( $heap, $message ) = @_[ HEAP, ARG0 ];
    $heap->{client}->put($message);
}

sub client_connected {
    my $session_id = $_[SESSION]->ID;
    $users{$session_id} = 1;
    broadcast( $session_id, "connected." );
}

sub client_disconnected {
    my $session_id = $_[SESSION]->ID;
    delete $users{$session_id};
    broadcast( $session_id, "disconnected." );
}

sub client_error {
    my $session_id = $_[SESSION]->ID;
    delete $users{$session_id};
    broadcast( $session_id, "disconnected." );
    $_[KERNEL]->yield("shutdown");
}

sub client_input {
    my ( $session, $input ) = @_[ KERNEL, SESSION, ARG0 ];
    broadcast( $session->ID, "said: $input" );
}
[download]