Chef is a systems integration framework, built to bring the benefits of configuration management to your entire infrastructure.
I have created cpan cookbook to install cpan modules with chef. It's easy in use, because all the implimenation is hidden providing you simple interface:
cpan_client 'CGI' do
action 'install'
install_type 'cpan_module'
user 'root'
group 'root'
end
Among cpan_client features are:
* installing in dry-run mode
* installing with given install_base and install_path
* installing from tarball
* installing within given cwd
* and others
For more details visit - http://community.opscode.com/cookbooks/cpan