[Mailman-Users] get Member Passwords for external tool

Hi! I want to write an external site where members can download files. I want to secure it by the list passwords. How can I get the passwords, I'm not into Python so I want to write this site in Perl. Is there a way to access the /config.pck/ via Perl or how can I get my hands on those passwords.

[Mailman-Users] can't access pipermail

I'm learning to operate Mailman 2.0.9. I played a bit with public and private archives, where private archives work fine. But my public ones won't. The http://localhost/pipermail/ directory is aliased to the proper directory but there are only symolic links to the files and dirs in the private