transactions outside the database...

hello,

  i'm hoping that someone can help me with a transaction problem i'm stuck
on.  i have a little web site which allows (authorized) people to create user
accounts on a FreeBSD box via web interface.  i keep track of these user
accounts via postgres database (things like activation
date/status/expiry/quota/billing/etc..) this is implemented in perl using
dbi.  i also call a second secure script that creates the system accounts
using a call to 'pw'.

  my problem is that i don't know how to guarantee that the account is
created/modified/erased in BOTH the system password database and the postgres
database.  i figured that maybe i could reverse one transaction if the other
failed, but what if for some reason i can't reverse a modification to the
system password db?  can anyone offer any advice, or pointers on handling
this problem?

thanks,
  twkonefal

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