Are you trying to install this module system-wide, or just locally (for yourself)? For a system-wide install you'll need to type "sudo cpan", so that you run as root, else you won't have permission to install the files where they need to go. If you just want it for yourself, you'll need to use something like "prefix=~/myperl" on the command line, to tell cpan to install the files locally. But then you'll need to set the PERL5LIB env variable (or else put a "use lib" in your script) so that your local libs will be seen.