Getting CPAN running locally

2008-01-08 2-minute read

My goal was simple - to install the DateTime::Event::Recurrence CPAN module for my non-privileged user. As often is the case when I try to figure out CPAN (about once every two years - long enough to forget everything I knew about it previously) - it seemed a lot harder than it should have been.

I eventually succeeded by following these steps:

  • I made my own local perl directory:

     mkdir share
     mkdir share/perl
    
  • I exported a couple environmental variables. Note, by appending a colon to the end of MANPATH I’m instructing the manpath program to append the system default MANPATH paths to the end of my custom one (see man manpath). According to man perlrun, the PERL5LIB variable defines local directories to check before checking standard ones - so no need to worry about over-writing the standard library locations.

     echo "export PERL5LIB=~/share/perl/lib" >> ~/.bashrc
     echo "export MANPATH=~/share/perl/man:" >> ~/.bashrc
    
  • And then sourced them:

     source ~/.bashrc
    
  • I ran cpan with:

     cpan
    
  • I chose to let cpan auto configure my settings

  • From the cpan shell, I told cpan about my own directories:

     o conf makepl_arg "LIB=~/share/perl/lib \
     	INSTALLMAN1DIR=~/share/perl/man/man1 \
       INSTALLMAN3DIR=~/share/perl/man/man3 \
     	INSTALLSCRIPT=~/share/perl/bin \
     	INSTALLBIN=~/share/perl/bin \
     	PREFIX=~/share/perl"
    
     o conf makepl_arg "LIB=~/share/perl/lib \
       INSTALLMAN1DIR=~/share/perl/man/man1 \
     	INSTALLMAN3DIR=~/share/perl/man/man3 \
     	INSTALLSCRIPT=~/share/perl/bin \
     	INSTALLBIN=~/share/perl/bin \
     	PREFIX=~/share/perl"
    
  • Saved these settings for next time:

     o conf commit
    
  • I installed the latest version of CPAN with:

     install cpan
    
  • And then installed what I wanted:

     install DateTime::Event::Recurrence