Building a local perl distribution

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

For easy distribution of our applications we are trying to create an automated tool for collecting modules and packaging them as a binary release.
Here is a list of items I gathered we should do.
I am sure most (if not all) of this is already available in existing tools. I just don't know in which tools.
So I need your help to find the relevant CPAN modules that can help me build this tool for our release management.

List the version of Perl we would like to use. (ok, this will be done manually)
List a bunch of modules we need with version numbers (a prereq file) (this is also done manually)

Here starts the automatization:

Pull perl source, create a new perl installation
Pull all modules with the listed version, (if needed go to backpan to find the right version)
(warn if had to go to backpan) (warn if there are newer versions on CPAN)
Use a local flat directory for both the perl source code file and the modules.
This would allow downloading some of the files (and/or caching them) and to add locally created modules.
Check dependencies of the modules and if they are all satisfied
Fetch the license information for all the modules and make sure they are of a set of given licenses approved. (e.g. gpl is not approved but gpl+artistic (aka. perl) is ok.
Check if each individual module+version was approved by legal.
(This information might be taken from some configuration file or using a callback developed by the local engineers to fit the local interface to the legal department)
Install all the modules (into the @INC of perl or to a separate directory PREFIX=bla LIB=blabla)
Report if any failures encountered.
Let me run the whole thing (or part of it) again with a new set if modules and/or versions of the modules and upgade the modules as needed or warn me if I already installed a module and now I am trying to install an older version.

Comment on Building a local perl distribution

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Re: Building a local perl distribution by ides (Deacon) on Sep 25, 2006 at 15:32 UTC
While it doesn't handle your actual Perl interpretor, you're going to want to look into PAR as a good solution to most of your issues. Frank Wiles <frank@revsys.com> www.revsys.com	[reply]
Re^2: Building a local perl distribution by szabgab (Priest) on Sep 25, 2006 at 15:46 UTC
While PAR can handle the packaging once I have installed all the modules my concern is more on the part of getting and installing the right version of modules. It's quite likely we will just distribute a zipped version of the whole tree we built (with or without the perl tree itself) and then unzip it on the clients machine.	[reply]
Re: Building a local perl distribution by rinceWind (Monsignor) on Sep 25, 2006 at 18:52 UTC
You might be interested in the slides for my Packaging Perl Applications talk, given at YAPC::EU 2006. -- Oh Lord, won’t you burn me a Knoppix CD ? My friends all rate Windows, I must disagree. Your powers of persuasion will set them all free, So oh Lord, won’t you burn me a Knoppix CD ? (Missquoting Janis Joplin)	[reply]
Re: Building a local perl distribution by tsee (Curate) on Sep 27, 2006 at 09:06 UTC
Make sure to look at David Golden's work on Perl::Dist. It's the base for the recent Vanilla and Strawberry win32 Perl distributions. HTH, Steffen	[reply]