Hi. I want to build a Linux server to run perl scripts as cron jobs. The scripts will need to be remotely edited once in a while (maybe weekly) and connect to a MySQL database. The MySQL data is important but not nearly as important as the 4 scripts which I consider to be trade secrets. I'd like to use free software as much as possible.

The root account must not have access to the scripts. (I don't mind if root can read the mysql data.)

I think that means I want to implement access control lists, though I'm open to other options as well.

Q1: Is it true that to make the environment safe, we'll need to have a private (ACL protected) install of Perl? Otherwise, root could install a hacked perl binary which saves copies of scripts it runs, right? Is there anything else which the perl core uses which would need to be protected? (I can track module dependancies -- that's not my question.)

Q2: How feasable would it be for root to save a core image of a running process and then decompile the perl source from that image?

Q3: Anything else I'm not thinking of?

Q4: Anybody read/written about this sort of thing elsewhere?

Thanks
John

In reply to "safe" perl cron environment? by jhanna

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