i guess that'll work out. ideally, i'd like to provide the users with the same functionality as a direct FTP connection, just limit which files they can alter. if i do that with this method, it could take a real long time to perform a command. (open connection, perform command, get results, close connection, return results)
the server admin shouldn't have any problem though. the users will all have access through one (my) account. the perl script is just there to limit which files each user can alter. basically the perl script will mimic the permission effects of multiple accounts while still only using one.