Since I have avoided perl+setuid like the plague I cannot really comment on a perl solution for you. No doubt there is more than one! You mention that maintenance might become a problem with a greater number of users, so you may well discover that a clever script now, will give rise to some more clever scripts, followed by some desperate ones - over time. It may well be the case that rethinking the mail-server strategy will save you work, pain, stress and mileage in the long run.(YMMV)

You mention LDAP++ , I have found LDAP a fantastic way to retrieve user information, particularly with perl, much software supports LDAP authentication also. I am drifting OT now , but will recommend you check out some of the features of InsightServer (v4.0.0b which I am re-evaluating ATM) and DBMail, who specifically mention..

Security. Dbmail has got nothing to do with the filesystem or interaction w +ith other programs in the Unix environment which need special permissions. Dbmail is as secure as the database it's based upon.

Those are my two cents, most of this I am still researching. Insightserver is _ALMOST_ a MSExchange killer but it does cost $$ (less than Exchange), it still makes a nice db-backed imap server, and from what I see today the v4 beta has had it's administration interface VASTLY upgraded. I discover that Vacation is part of its web admin tools.



food for thought can be hard to chew

In reply to Re: help...cgi-bin form - strategy needed to set user's out of office reply via the vacation prog. by submersible_toaster
in thread help...cgi-bin form - strategy needed to set user's out of office reply via the vacation prog. by weenie

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.