austin43:

Right. If you want to change the default umask for root, then edit the .bashrc for root (assuming a bash shell). Perl's umask simply sets the umask for the currently-running perl script, it doesn't attempt to change the umask setting for anything else. Even in bash, running umask won't set the default value for root, it only sets the value used in the current session. That's why .bashrc and .bash_profile exist--to allow you to set up the account defaults.

...roboticus

When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like your thumb.