Jeremy's Perl Stuff
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AcctInfo.pm
A Perl module for accessing and modifying Unix account information.
Introduction | Status | Help Needed | Availability
AcctInfo.pm is Perl module for accessing user account information on Unix systems. I am developing it for my own use, but I realize that others' needs may be served by making this available for public use.
I've been wishing for a module like this for quite some time (easily over a year), and it never appeared, so I'm starting to write it. My initial plans for this module are that it provide clean and easy access to both read and write "account information" on Solaris 2.x and Linux systems.
By "account information" I'm referring to things like a user's password, shell, home directory, account expiration information, group membership, quota, mail forwarding, and so on.
As you might imagine, this module is going to serve as the back-end to a web-based account administration system but its use is not limited to "web stuff" by any means. The idea is to allow users (and sysadmins) web-based access to account information. That relieves users (like those on the Wood County FreeNet) who typically view the Internet as a combination of Eudora and a web browser from needing to learn how to telnet, use the "passwd" command, and so on.
I have an initial version done. Not all the features are there, but I've done some real work with it. You mileage may vary, of course.
This is always in development, so if you have ideas or requests, feel free to mail me.
If you don't want to download the entire distribution (which is really quite small) just to see the docs or one of a couple of other files, you can get 'em here:
If you're interested, I could use help with both the coding, testing, and documentation of this module--especially on platforms that I don't have root access to.
This is the first Perl "module" I've designed. That's not to say I'm new to Perl--quite the contrary. I've been hacking at Perl for close to three years now. I'm just finally trying out some of the more powerful Perl5isms. So, pointers in that regard are most welcome.
Version 1.18 is now available. 
The code is distributed under the GNU Public License. If you don't like that, don't use it.
Once you've acquainted yourself with the license terms, you may want the source code (in .tar.gz format) and the documentation (in HTML). The documentation is included in the distribution in POD format, so you can render it in whatever format you'd like.
