use a better authentication method.

i'm using PostgreSQL with KerberosV5 authentication.

package KrbKey;
use base 'Class::DBI';
__PACKAGE__->set_db('Main',
  'dbi:Pg:dbname=krbkey;host=dbserver.sub.dom'  # no user/password
);
__PACKAGE__->table('krpass');
__PACKAGE__->columns(All => qw( passkey passval ));
1;


#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

use KrbKey;

sub lookup {
        my $key = shift;
        my $pw = KrbKey->retrieve($key);
        return $pw->passval;
}

if (@ARGV) {
        my @pw = map {lookup($_)} @ARGV;
        print join $/, @pw, '';
} else {
        print join $/, map({$_->id} KrbKey->retrieve_all), '';
}
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without a valid principal...

$ getpw
Failure while doing '' with '_filter_retrieve_all in KrbKey'
Ima::DBI->connect(dbname=krbkey;host=dbserver.sub.dom) failed: Kerbero
+s 5 authentication failed at /opt/network/bin/getpw line 17
 at /opt/network/bin/getpw line 17
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and with...

$ kinit
Password for me@SUB.DOM: 

$ getpw
cisco.console
cisco.enable
snmp.ro
snmp.rw
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there's also the possibility of using SSL and Certificates for authentication (i think even MySQL can do SSL auth)