Thanks zentara, user nobody didn't have access but it doesn't fix anything. Actually the server should be coming in with my username, at least it makes files with my login on them. I also cannot do chown in this environment. Encryption to a public key should not require having one's own keys.. I didn't make keys for the account itself, and now that I try to I find there is not enough entropy in the system (literally) to generate keys, anyway.

fglock Thanks. I am not aware of using open2/3 but this is very useful information. I will certainly look at this some more.

Also thank you, jnarins. I believe I can fit perl 5.8 in the 100mb I have (yes it's sad) maybe I can cross compile from a sparc or cygwin? Will look at that. ..My main linux machine is waiting to be rescued from an untimely lobotomy, it resembles me).