I am not a security specialist. But being a sysadmin I almost know the basics :-)

First thing that I had to know about security is that security and comfort don't match. So, if you want maximum security you have to make the road that leads root to another user a no-return way.

This means, of course, that for minor configuration changes they will be still able to send a HUP and have them immediately applied. But for changes that need root privileges they'll have to restart the program. Not very comfortable, probably, but more secure.

That shouldn't be a big problem anyway, if you provide a init.d-like shell script along with the perl script. That way an administrator could run a /etc/init.d/assp reload for a minor configuration change, and /etc/init.d/assp restart for major changes.

I hope my 2 cents will help

Ciao!
--bronto

# Another Perl edition of a song:
# The End, by The Beatles
END {
  $you->take($love) eq $you->make($love) ;
}