You might try CPANPLUS (I haven't tried it, but the CPAN docs recommend it)

--
TTTATCGGTCGTTATATAGATGTTTGCA

Even easier:

$ perldoc -l CPAN::Config

Of course, the o conf command within the CPAN shell may also help.

Thanks. That did the trick.

Now I know where to look for the CPAN config files:

  
/usr/libdata/perl5/CPAN/Config.pm
[download]

  'urllist' => [
        q[http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/pub/CPAN/],
        q[ftp://uiarchive.uiuc.edu/pub/lang/perl/CPAN/],
        ],
[download]

Update: Some googling aroung found this:

http://mirror.cpan.org/status.cgi , where you can search on your continent. lciking on a ntry that returns willl give http: and ftp: URLs that exist at that mirror. http: is simpler to use in a firewalled environment.

• Pipe size
Some servers, such as nasa's, have a really fat pipe. Even if it's a few extra hops, a server with a bigger network connection will often provide a happier, faster download experience.
• Users allowed
When using FTP servers, there are some servers that are really fast, but quickly fill up. Such as orst.edu. Don't waste your time slurping from them unless you have a good reason to.
• Protocol
My first choices are usually certain FTP servers, but my I always make sure to have a couple HTTP servers in at the end. Why? Because they're less likely to be "full" and not accepting users.
• Lastly, location
I prefer to measure distance by ping latency instead of hops, it's a truer measure of internet distance. A parallel would be, if you're in a village on a main road, a city 200 miles away might be effectively closer than the village 20 miles away across roadless swamps.

In many cases the performance of http and ftp will be equal, or at least indistinguishable.

That being the case, and ftp having so many issue (allowed connection limits, firewals and active/passive mode interactions), I think most folks will actually be happier having the http URLs first.

Of course, this assumes that whatever web proxies you're going through allow whatever user agent string that CPAN uses.

Looking at the actual CPAN.pm file ($VERSION = '1.61'), there are 2 places where I see:

$Ua = CPAN::LWP::UserAgent->new;
[download]

Placing:

$Ua->agent('some_string_the_firewall_likes');
[download]

after the second such reference changed the UAS used for CPAN going out to a URL in the urllist. .



--Bob Niederman, http://bob-n.com

I've never heard of a Perl mirror, or really anything in the unix world, giving people trouble over agent strings. Actually I do a lot of my browsing with "Aighearach was here" as my agent string, without trouble.

Do you have an example of a CPAN mirror or other Perl site that has a restriction of this sort?

For the most part I do agree with you that HTTP is a better bet if you don't know what FTP servers are good. Personally, I just lean heavy on the NASA server, and use an HTTP as a backup.
--
Snazzy tagline here

It's also possible you're having network problems unrelated to CPAN. Can you FTP these files manually?

It appears that some sites are very slow. Changing mirror addresses solved the problem. Thanks.