I have

    my $command = '/usr/sfw/bin/smbclient -L rest of command goes here
+';
    my $output = qx{$command};
    if (defined $output){
        warn "$output defined";
    }else{
        warn "$output undefined";
    }
    warn Dumper $output;
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Apage error_log shows " defined at samba.pl line...". Apache runs as the same users I'm running the command line example as. I checked this in the httpd.conf and with the whoami command.