I'm working with our IT department's local, on-site administrator to arrange it so that my department's Perl PCs may enjoy the use of ActiveState's PPM and CPAN too. But we're having issues with figuring that out.

It is already agreed that various PPM repositories and CPAN ought to both be permitted. No issues there. But we are having a very hard time determining from which among our corporation's several (globally-adminstered) network softwares is blocking PPM and CPAN. Two or more of them might be effecting the blockage in combination for all we can tell. A couple of days now we've wasted trying this and that. So far nothing helps.

Some time before, both had been working. But that was quite some ago. Between then and now something has changed. But since I don't use either PPM or CPAN on even a weekly or monthly basis, I can't pin down the date on which either stopped working. I only discovered it recently when attempting a fresh install Perl on an additional PC newly installed in our lab.

I am hoping someone on this list might know which hoops to jump through. Any insite whatsoever whould help to narrow the focus for my plant's one-and-only (read overworked) IT administrator...an MS-oriented sort who, alas, knows nothing much about Perl.

The company uses Microsoft ISA on the global network. Tha installion is a whole time-zone distant. But I don't think it's that because I can see the various PPM repository sites and CPAN also in the MSIE browser. So I don't think it's a global keyword or URL block.

We are also using these on every WinXP PC in the plant...

If it's McAfee then we need clues on how to configure it. We can't just turn it off, not even as an experiment, without risk of major retibution. So don't suggest that, please.

FTP going outbound is not blocked. I can manually do FTP to my private server. And, as I said, I can visit the PPM repositories and also CPAN via MSIE 6.

I can do this.... C:> perl -MCPAN -e shell ...and do GET but the LWP always reports error[404] Not found. when I do. Likewise, when I call PPM and it goes to read from the repository list, I see Not found on all of them, including ActiveState's own.

I read on the ISA website, at least as of 2006, that ISA does not sniff for UserAgent. My IT admin has set my own privileges on the PC to highest. That didn't work. She came and logged in as herself in IT admin guise, and still PPM and CPAN don't work. It's really got us stumped. Might anyone possibly shed a ray of enlightenment, please?

In reply to Help my IT admin unblock PPM and CPAN, please. by aplonis

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