Permissions for a separately installed perl

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

A clean install of Ubuntu 8.04. I've installed a new perl under /opt/perl. The

john@ubuntu:~/perl-5.10.1$./Configure -des -Dprefix=/opt/perl
john@ubuntu:~/perl-5.10.1$make
john@ubuntu:~/perl-5.10.1$make test
john@ubuntu:~/perl-5.10.1$make install
[download]

appeared to run fine except for install which complained about permissions. Not sure what to do I

john@ubuntu:~$cd /opt
john@ubuntu:~$sudo mkdir perl
john@ubuntu:~$sudo chmod 777 perl
[download]

and then the make install ran fine. I created a link

john@ubuntu:~$cd /usr/local/bin
john@ubuntu:~$sudo ln -isv /opt/perl/bin/perl perl
[download]

john@ubuntu:~$ls -l /usr/local/bin/perl
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 2010-02-28 10:50 /usr/local/bin/perl -> /opt
+/perl/bin/perl
[download]

This gave me:

john@ubuntu:~$/usr/local/bin/perl -e 'print "$]\n";'
5.010001
john@ubuntu:~$/usr/bin/perl -e 'print "$]\n";'
5.008008
[download]

So far so good, but

john@ubuntu:~$perl -e 'print "$]\n";'
5.008008
[download]

which wasn't what I was expecting. And worse

john@ubuntu:~$sudo perl -e 'print "$]\n";'
5.010001
[download]

The path is (extract)

john@ubuntu:~$echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin: ... /usr/bin: ...
[download]

Can anyone see how I managed to screw it up? And is it possible to straighten it out? Do you need any more info?

fwiw, I'm looking to convert some cgi apps to mod_perl. I'm renting a cheap VPS as a "sandbox" but before I let myself loose on that I've set up a spare box with the same OS. At the back of my mind is how to tell Apache/mod_perl to use the perl under /opt/perl. But I fear I have a long way to go before I need worry about that (e.g. learning unix and fighting vim). :-)

As always, thanks in advance.

Updated: corrected the paths in the first code block

Comment on Permissions for a separately installed perl Select or Download Code

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Re: Permissions for a separately installed perl by almut (Canon) on Feb 28, 2010 at 12:24 UTC
What do you get for `$ ls -l /opt/perl/bin/perl $ which -a perl` [download] The shell's search behavior (mimicked by `which`) is to skip programs if their binary isn't executable for the user in question, even if it comes earlier in `$PATH`. P.S.: it's usually not a good idea to make directories like `/opt/perl` world-writable...	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: Permissions for a separately installed perl by wfsp (Abbot) on Feb 28, 2010 at 12:31 UTC
`$ ls -l /opt/perl/bin/perl -rwxr-xr-x 2 john john 1169915 2010-02-28 10:30 /opt/perl/bin/perl $ which -a perl /usr/local/bin/perl /usr/bin/perl` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^3: Permissions for a separately installed perl by shmem (Chancellor) on Feb 28, 2010 at 13:44 UTC
Ok, in that shell, what does `perl -e 'print "$]\n";'` [download] yield? The shell hashes paths to commands, and if you add a command to a path previous in $PATH to the already hashed one, your may not see the changes: qwurx [shmem] ~> touch blorflydick qwurx [shmem] ~> rm blorflydick qwurx [shmem] ~> mkdir bin qwurx [shmem] ~> PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH qwurx [shmem] ~> which rm /bin/rm qwurx [shmem] ~> echo '#!/bin/sh' > bin/rm qwurx [shmem] ~> echo 'echo no rm damnit' >> bin/rm qwurx [shmem] ~> chmod a+x bin/rm qwurx [shmem] ~> which rm ~/bin/rm qwurx [shmem] ~> rm blorflydick rm: cannot remove `bloflydick': No such file or directory qwurx [shmem] ~> [download] A new shell will see the changes, however: `qwurx [shmem] ~> echo $SHLVL 4 qwurx [shmem] ~> bash qwurx [shmem] ~> echo $SHLVL 5 qwurx [shmem] ~> rm blorflydick no rm damnit qwurx [shmem] ~>` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: Permissions for a separately installed perl by almut (Canon) on Feb 28, 2010 at 13:53 UTC
Re^5: Permissions for a separately installed perl by wfsp (Abbot) on Feb 28, 2010 at 13:59 UTC
Re^3: Permissions for a separately installed perl by almut (Canon) on Feb 28, 2010 at 13:33 UTC
Hm... another try: `$ strace -f -efile /bin/bash -c 'perl -v' 2>&1 \| grep perl` [download]	[reply] [d/l]
Re^4: Permissions for a separately installed perl by wfsp (Abbot) on Feb 28, 2010 at 13:46 UTC
Re^5: Permissions for a separately installed perl by almut (Canon) on Feb 28, 2010 at 13:59 UTC
Re^3: Permissions for a separately installed perl by bart (Canon) on Mar 01, 2010 at 09:36 UTC
Also try `sudo which perl` [download] I think it's a matter of what's in PATH.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Permissions for a separately installed perl by stefbv (Priest) on Feb 28, 2010 at 12:58 UTC
Try to change the symlink name (remove the old one from /usr/local/bin/) like: `% ln -isv /opt/perl/bin/perl /usr/local/bin/myperl` [download] Then check if /usr/local/bin is in $PATH and try: `% myperl -V or if not in $PATH % /usr/local/bin/myperl -V` [download] If all good use 'myperl' Update: Don't put /opt/perl/bin in %PATH	[reply] [d/l] [select]