Installing CPAN modules without root access

tomazos has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I am attempting to use CPAN.pm to install modules on a shared machine that I do not have root access for:

andrew:~$ perl -MCPAN -e 'shell'

I get the following response:

Your configuration suggests that CPAN.pm should use a working
directory of
    /usr/src/cpan
Unfortunately we could not create the lock file
    /usr/src/cpan/.lock
due to permission problems.

Please make sure that the configuration variable
    $CPAN::Config->{cpan_home}
points to a directory where you can write a .lock file. You can set
this variable in either
    /usr/lib/perl5/CPAN/Config.pm
or
    /home/andrew/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm

Could not open >/usr/src/cpan/.lock: Permission denied
[download]

Any ideas? What is the correct way to handle this? -Andrew Tomazos <andrew@tomazos.com>

Comment on Installing CPAN modules without root access Select or Download Code

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Re: Installing CPAN modules without root access by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Aug 04, 2004 at 12:46 UTC
I gave detailed instructions for setting up non-root CPAN at Re: Personal library with CPAN. After Compline, Zaxo	[reply]
Re: Installing CPAN modules without root access by Joost (Canon) on Aug 04, 2004 at 12:12 UTC
You probably want to remove that email address there. Did you try this? `Please make sure that the configuration variable $CPAN::Config->{cpan_home} points to a directory where you can write a .lock file. You can set this variable in either /usr/lib/perl5/CPAN/Config.pm or /home/andrew/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm` [download] "What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Installing CPAN modules without root access by sunadmn (Curate) on Aug 04, 2004 at 12:20 UTC
Well from a file system level you would just need to make sure your user is a member of the group that owns that folder/dir and then you should be able to write to that folder/dir no problem, or you will have to try some other method of getting root like SuDo I use this on all my systems to allow others just certain abilities. SUNADMN *USE PERL*	[reply]
Re: Installing CPAN modules without root access by Anonymous Monk on Sep 10, 2013 at 18:32 UTC
In all seriousness, Google This: `perl install cpan without root access`.	[reply]