Perl installation and configuration module

This module installs the Perl programming language package, and provides a definition for loading and excluding Perl modules available on CPAN.

• http://www.perl.org/
• http://www.cpan.org/

Note: Perl modules are highly variable in their implementation, because "there's more than one way to do it", so some modules will have to be installed some other way. Though this module should give some idea on suitable code patterns that could get it done.

Requirements

Updated code tested on Redhat family. Original code only tested on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, should work for other Debian distributions. Should not require any other packages installed.

Using the perl class

The perl class ensures that the Perl language is installed with some minimal tools required to manage Perl and CPAN modules.

Default Perl install

This should install the perl, perl-CPAN, pm-tools and the Apps::pmuninstall module with the default settings.

include ::perl

I reccomend you at least specify a CPAN mirror.

Installing with parameters

class{'::perl':
	perl_version => '5.8.6',
	ensure		 => present,
	cpan_mirror  => 'ftp://some.mirror.cpan.org/pub/perl/CPAN/',
}

Parameters

• perl_version: Specifies the Perl version to install, defaults to the default version for your Linux distribution.
• ensure: Passed to the packages being installed, 'present' is default.
• cpan_mirror: Select your CPAN mirrod, ftp://mirror.bytemark.co.uk/CPAN/ is the default. Change this if you're not in the UK.
• perl_package: Specifies the Perl package to be installed, the default is 'perl'
• cpan_package: Specifies the Perl CPAN package to be installed, the default is 'perl-CPAN'
• pmtools_package: Specifies the Perl management tools package to be installed, defaults to 'pmtools'.

Using the perl::cpan resource definition

Install a Perl module from CPAN:

perl::cpan{'module::name': ensure => present}

Ensure that a Perl module is not installed:

perl::cpan{'module::name': ensure => absent}

Parameters

• ensure: Ensure that the module is 'present' or 'absent', defaults to present.
• env: Specify an environemt to execute the install command in, defaults to undef.
• force: Should the module be forcibly installed, defaults to false.
• timeout: Changes the timeout in seconds for installing the Perl module, some modules can take a quite some time to compile. By default it is set to 120 seconds.

To do...

• Change the CPAN definition to a case format for handling exceptional packages, broken package, and obsolete packages.
• Create some facter scripts for Perl, such as getting version and reporting CPAN mirror

Credits

Code modified by Gavin Williams (fatmcgav@gmail.com).
Original code written by Aaron Hicks (hicksa@landcareresearch.co.nz) for the New Zealand eScience Infrastructure.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License