CPAN problem

[roger]

I've got a freshly installed version of perl 5.6.1 as configured by
the MS Services For Unix (SFU) package.

I'm trying to use the CPAN module to download/install a few things,
like Bundle::libnet and so on, but not having any luck.

I allowed CPAN to autoconfigure itself, by answering no to the first
question it asked when I ran

perl -MCPAN -e shell


After that, I get a shell, and type the following:


cpan> install Bundle::libnet
LWP not available

Please, install Net::FTP as soon as possible. CPAN.pm installs it for
you
if you just type
install Bundle::libnet

Issuing "/bin/ftp -n"
usage: lcd local-directory
100% |**************************************************| 95544
00:01
Bad luck... Still failed!
Can't access URL ftp://ftp.perl.org/pub/CPAN/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz.


And it repeats that for 2 other files (02packages.details.txt.gz and
03modlist.data.gz)

Then it says:

Could not fetch modules/03modlist.data.gz
Warning: Cannot install Bundle::libnet, don't know what it is.
Try the command

i /Bundle::libnet/

to find objects with matching identifiers.




However,that URL is valid, and it does in fact download all
three of the files attempted to the current directory where I
ran the command.

Having never used CPAN before, I don't know if I'm doing something
wrong, or if there is some problem with the vanilla SFU configuration.

Can anyone help?

Thanks

 

[Robert Sedlacek]

Can anyone help?

Don't you have any mirrors specified for your cpan?

 

[roger]

Don't you have any mirrors specified for your cpan?

Thanks for replying.

I have added ftp://ftp.mednor.net/pub/mirrors/CPAN/
as a mirror, but it makes no difference.

And like I say, the files were downloaded and now reside
in my current directory.

 

[Anno Siegel]

Thanks for replying.

I have added ftp://ftp.mednor.net/pub/mirrors/CPAN/
as a mirror, but it makes no difference.

And like I say, the files were downloaded and now reside
in my current directory.

That isn't where they ought to be. You probably have no .cpan directory
configured.

Anno

 

[roger]

Thanks.

Yes, I do have $HOME/.cpan created, with a subdirectory sources,
both created automatically the first time I ran perl -MCPAN -e shell.

And, when I run the cpan shell from that directory subsequently,
the files are placed in that directory, but it still fails.

I don't understand why it thinks it is failing to download them when
clearly it is succeeding.

Hmm.


(e-mail address removed)-berlin.de (Anno Siegel) wrote in @mamenchi.zrz.TU-Berlin.DE:

 

[Robert Sedlacek]

I don't understand why it thinks it is failing to download them when
clearly it is succeeding.

Hm, the only thing I could think of is that you have a router between you
and the outside world with a firewall or something. If not, I'm afraid
that I'm out of ideas..

 

[roger]

Well, yes I do. But it's the same (NAT) router that sits there for
everything, and through which I can do from the shell things like

ftp -n ftp://ftp.perl.org/pub/CPAN/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz

and it works fine. And, as I say, the files are being downloaded
by the CPAN module, it just thinks it is failing...


I think there is something fundamentally wrong with the build of
perl that I'm using from the Services For Unix 3.5 package.

I've got some other strange things that are happening as well that
probably account for some unpredictable behavior like this.
I haven't diagnosed it sufficiently to explain it yet though.

I'll be back if I can boil it down to something sensible.

Thanks.