Webmail

[Kit Halsted <kit_(_at_)_kithalsted_(_dot_)_com>]

Apologies for asking a question so similar to one in the archive's 
greatest hits section, but there are a lot of sysadmins on this list 
whose opinions are worth listening to & this *exact* question hasn't 
been asked before.

I've had clients start asking for webmail lately. I'd like to offer 
this functionality, but I'd like to do it without compromising system 
security & without adding a database to my server. The server does 
POP3 & SMTP, I'll give my users IMAP about when hell freezes over. (I 
don't need the aggravation of storing their mail on the server & 
telling them how to empty their mailboxes when they hit quota.) I 
looked at Endymion MailMan, but I stopped looking when I realized 
their pricing was per-domain. Now I'm mostly looking at sqwebmail. I 
think I can run this without compromising system security because I'm 
running a virtual mail package. I'm running qmail with vpopmail, 
which means I can run sqwebmail suid vpopmail instead of suid root. 
Now, I'm not a security expert. What I'd like to know from this list 
is whether my logic re: sqwebmail is flawed & whether anyone has a 
better suggestion for webmail, or even whether the idea of webmail is 
so fundamentally flawed that I just shouldn't do it. Note that I 
don't care about *mail* security (they're using POP-3 already), I 
only care about host security (POP-3 users do not have shells).

Thanks,
-Kit
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary 
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin

"...qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum"
(...if you would have peace, be prepared for war)
-Flavius Vegetius Renatus