Would it not be easier to create your own debian package to do this? If you set the dependancies correctly, all required packages will be installed automatically, and you can have the post installation script (in perl) do the configuration for you.

So instead of running your script on every computer, just install one .deb on each computer.

At least debconf has a lot of Perl modules, but unfortunately, the Debian developers deem these not fit for release on CPAN, as they are Debian specific... I can't gather any callbacks back to apt-get though.

More googling returns apt-dialog, some Tk frontend for apt and apt-src, supposedly an apt library with an interface from Perl.

perl -MHTTP::Daemon -MHTTP::Response -MLWP::Simple -e ' ;    # The  
$d = new HTTP::Daemon and fork and getprint $d->url and exit;#spider
($c = $d->accept())->get_request(); $c->send_response( new   #in the
HTTP::Response(200,$_,$_,qq(Just another Perl hacker\n))); ' #  web
[download]

--
Ilya Martynov, ilya@iponweb.net
CTO IPonWEB (UK) Ltd
Quality Perl Programming and Unix Support UK managed @ offshore prices - http://www.iponweb.net
Personal website - http://martynov.org

I did briefly and also took a look at cfengine. However we needed to get this out relatively quickly and on existing workstations. As far as I know, another guy is working on custom installs based on FAI, so I'll just add the LDAP bit onto that when his done.

Thanks for the reference though, It's good to know we're on the right track

Simon N

I'd put this in a shell script. Perl is kinda overkill for this job.

----
Reinvent a rounder wheel.

Note: All code is untested, unless otherwise stated

So far the only solution I can find is to use system() to call apt-get with the -y option to turn off prompts.

You are right to hesitate to do this. There are a number of very worthwhile reasons to avoid such a technique, in general.

However, in this case...

Almost all the reasons to avoid calling system binaries involve one of two factors: portability or efficiency. Neither matters here.

Portability is utterly unimportant because the whole point of what you want to do is centered on one specific OS and one specific distribution. Portability is not involved.

Efficiency is similarly non-critical. Shelling out to a non-Perl process takes extra microseconds, but you're doing it a small handful of times; it won't add up to an extra five seconds, and you're doing that once at install time. It's a non-issue.

So don't waste time on a more elegant solution; throw your apt-get command in backticks and be done. Perl, according to the first sentence of the Camel, is a language for getting your job done. You can write this script (well, the apt-get part) in five or ten minutes and be done.

I use apt-cacher, not a proxy in a true sense but a Perl cgi script that mimics a proxy. I caught Jonathan Oxer's talk about it at debConf @ Linux Conf Au 03 and went home and installed it that night. Rusty (of iptables fame and who also wrote apt-proxy) was in the audience and he made some interesting comments about his own software :)

Simon N

Nomis52 you make me curious what did Rusty say?