The PATH string in the environment has nothing to do with the set of directories perl searches for modules (@INC). The default values assigned to @INC are determined when Perl is compiled.

Watch what happens when we set PATH to "/usr/bin":

$ PATH=/usr/bin perl -e 'use DBI; print qq(\nDBI pathname: $INC{"DBI.p
+m"}\n)'

DBI pathname: /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/i686-linux/DBI.pm
[download]

I'd say chances are pretty good that you're running one build of perl from the command line and the server is running another; probably two different versions (clue: not many production servers are going to be running 5.6.1). DBI was installed for the build that the server is running, but not for the build you're running. The solution is probably going to be to install DBI or have an admin install it for you, so that your build has access to it.

conv