[webmin-l] External squid-style authentication program ?

[Dave I. <dav...@en...>]

I am experimenting with the Webmin Authenticate feature "External
squid-style authentication program" that allows you to use an external
application to authenticate username/password login.  Unfortunately, I am
failing at the most simple test.
 
Just to try it out, I created an auth.pl script that does nothing except
read from STDIN and unconditionally prints out "OK\n" for each line of
input.
 
#!/usr/bin/perl
while (<STDIN>) {
        print "OK\n";
}

I then specified this script in the "External squid-style authentication
program" setting on the Authentication page. This should, if I am
understanding this correctly, successfully authenticate any Webmin use who
has "External authentication program" specified in their user access rights.
 
But it is not working.  When trying to log in with an externally
authenticated user, I don't get success or failure.  What happens is that
the browser just spins and there is never a response.  
 
Any ideas as to what the problem is?
 
The Webmin version is 1.240 running on Red hat EL3 Workstation)
 
Thanks
 
Dave Isaacs