I assume that the "<br>" strings I see in your code are not really part of your perl script; these (I hope) are due to a misunderstanding about how postings are done here -- check out the Site How To and Perl Monks Site FAQ. (If those tags are in your perl script, take them out; they don't belong there.)

Have you checked the ownership and permissions on the script file? It needs to be globally readable and executable by the user account that runs the web server (usually "nobody"); it also needs to be in a path that the server account can reach (all directory levels above the script file must grant read and execute permissions to the web server's user account).

But I suppose the error message might have said something about "permission denied" if it was a mode-flag problem...

Since you're the boss on that system, you must know where the web server's error log is. Generate the failure, then run "tail" on the error log, to see what the perl interpreter or web server said about the nature of the error.

Apart from the "break" tags that don't belong there, I don't see anything about the script itself that should be a problem. Check the web server config file, to make sure it's enabled to execute a cgi script in the directory where you have placed this script, etc.