cpan> o conf mbuildpl_arg "--install_base /proj/rose/"
cpan> o conf makepl_arg "PREFIX=/proj/rose/"
cpan> install HTML::Template
[download]

After setting the conf options, i used o conf commit. Can you please tell how to reset/rollback it

Either set the options back manually and then use o conf commit again, or reinitialize CPAN:

o conf init
[download]

When the CPAN shell starts, if it finds a file called ~/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm it will use that as the configuration file instead of the default one root has in its home directory.

So, run:

$ mkdir -p ~/.cpan/CPAN

and then run:

$ cp /root/.cpan/CPAN/Config.pm ~/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm

or even just:

$ touch ~/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm

Now, when you run:

$ perl -MCPAN -e shell

At the cpan prompt tell it to initialize the configuration:

cpan> o conf init

CPAN will go through its initialization process, and ask you a bunch of questions (including what to set as arguments to Makefile.PL, which tells make install where to put the files. When it is done, you can use the cpan shell to install modules in a user defined location.

Note that when installing libraries that have dependencies that are installed in your local directory, perl needs to be able to find them. So what I do is set PERL5LIB when I run cpan:

$ PERL5LIB=~/perl/lib perl -MCPAN -e shell

Enjoy,

trwww

Monks, can you help again?

I have done what trwww suggests immediately above, but this has not moved MyConfig from out of /root; it still shows as follows:

cpan[1]> o conf
$CPAN::Config options from /root/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm:
etc
etc
[download]

I want to move /MyConfig file out of /root as anything on root is on a RAM drive (its a qnap NAS device

Here is my full config:

cpan[1]> o conf
$CPAN::Config options from /root/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm:
    commit             [Commit changes to disk]
    defaults           [Reload defaults from disk]
    help               [Short help about 'o conf' usage]
    init               [Interactive setting of all options]

    applypatch         []
    auto_commit        [1]
    build_cache        [100]
    build_dir          [/share/MD0_DATA/.cpan/build_dir]
    build_dir_reuse    [1]
    build_requires_install_policy [yes]
    bzip2              [/opt/bin/bzip2]
    cache_metadata     [1]
    check_sigs         [0]
    colorize_debug     undef
    colorize_output    [0]
    colorize_print     undef
    colorize_warn      undef
    commandnumber_in_prompt [1]
    commands_quote     undef
    connect_to_internet_ok [1]
    cpan_home          [/share/MD0_DATA/.cpan]
    curl               undef
    dontload_hash      undef
    dontload_list      undef
    ftp                undef
    ftp_passive        [1]
    ftp_proxy          []
    ftpstats_period    undef
    ftpstats_size      undef
    getcwd             [cwd]
    gpg                [/opt/bin/gpg2]
    gzip               [/bin/gzip]
    halt_on_failure    [0]
    histfile           [/share/MD0_DATA/.cpan/histfile]
    histsize           [100]
    http_proxy         []
    inactivity_timeout [0]
    index_expire       [1]
    inhibit_startup_message [0]
    keep_source_where  [/share/MD0_DATA/.cpan/sources]
    load_module_verbosity [none]
    lynx               undef
    make               [/share/MD0_DATA/.qpkg/Optware/bin/make]
    make_arg           []
    make_install_arg   []
    make_install_make_command [/opt/bin/make]
    makepl_arg         [PREFIX=/share/MD0_DATA]
    mbuild_arg         []
    mbuild_install_arg []
    mbuild_install_build_command [./Build]
    mbuildpl_arg       []
    ncftp              undef
    ncftpget           undef
    no_proxy           []
    pager              [/bin/more]
    password           undef
    patch              [/opt/bin/patch]
    patches_dir        undef
    perl5lib_verbosity [none]
    prefer_external_tar [1]
    prefer_installer   [MB]
    prefs_dir          [/share/MD0_DATA/.cpan/prefs]
    prerequisites_policy [follow]
    proxy_pass         undef
    proxy_user         undef
    randomize_urllist  undef
    scan_cache         [atstart]
    shell              [/bin/sh]
    show_unparsable_versions [0]
    show_upload_date   [0]
    show_zero_versions [0]
    tar                [/opt/bin/tar]
    tar_verbosity      [none]
    term_is_latin      [1]
    term_ornaments     [1]
    test_report        [0]
    trust_test_report_history [0]
    unzip              [/usr/bin/unzip]
    urllist
        0 [http://cpan.mirrors.ilisys.com.au/]
        1 [http://mirror.internode.on.net/pub/cpan/]
        2 [http://cpan.mirror.aussiehq.net.au/]
    use_sqlite         [0]
    username           undef
    version_timeout    [15]
    wait_list          undef
    wget               [/usr/bin/wget]
    yaml_load_code     [0]
    yaml_module        [YAML]
[download]

export $HOME /not/in/ramdrive/

export MyConfig /not/in/ramdrive/.cpan/MyConfig/

Where should I post X?