Hi all, An update on this bug report: with a modified slapd.conf and a small patch to the back-perl module, I can use the ACL mask to ensure that the perl search function doesn't get invoked if disallowed by the ACLs. The patch works by creating a "fake" empty entry whose DN is the base of the search, and then passing this entry into access_allowed() using code borrowed from one of the other backends to either deny or allow access. http://pastebin.siriusit.co.uk/perlacl/slapd2.conf http://pastebin.siriusit.co.uk/perlacl/openldap-backperl-acls.patch