You could also use Getopt::Std and have a -u username -p password option.
what I typically do, is while I'm developing I'll:

my $USERNAME = $OPTS{'u'} || "username";
my $PASSWORD = $OPTS{'p'} || "password";
[download]

then once I move it into production I'll take out the "|| 'username'"'s and add checks for the username/password in the code and die if they're not there. Unfortunately though, you have to have your passwords decrypted in plain text somewhere.

When I do things with DBI, I use the database privileges system to give JUST enough rights to the user that my scripts can do what they need from where ever. As an example, lets say I have a database "network" and a table "devices" and I just need my script to get information from that database. I know my script is running on 192.168.0.5 then I can (in MySQL)

GRANT SELECT ON network.devices TO script@192.168.0.5;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
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and while you might not be administering this database, any good DBA will work with you to grant your script user _JUST_ the privileges it needs to do whatever it has to do.

This isn't possible with DBI but things like ssh have "publickey authenication" so you might want to sniff around for information on varying authentication methods.. If you're logging into a linux server, you might wanna read up on Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM).

just a few ideas..

-brad..

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