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bhupeshwalde has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

When i am configuring Config.pm file i am not able to choose a continent during a configuration? Can anyone help me i am suffering from last 10 days?Please help me?

/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/CPAN/Config.pm initialized. CPAN is the world-wide archive of perl resources. It consists of about 100 sites that all replicate the same contents all around the globe. Many countries have at least one CPAN site already. The resources found on CPAN are easily accessible with the CPAN.pm module. If you want to use CPAN.pm, you have to configure it properly. If you do not want to enter a dialog now, you can answer 'no' to this question and I'll try to autoconfigure. (Note: you can revisit this dialog anytime later by typing 'o conf init' at the cpan prompt.) Are you ready for manual configuration? [yes] The following questions are intended to help you with the configuration. The CPAN module needs a directory of its own to cache important index files and maybe keep a temporary mirror of CPAN files. This may be a site-wide directory or a personal directory. I see you already have a directory /root/.cpan Shall we use it as the general CPAN build and cache directory? CPAN build and cache directory? [/root/.cpan] If you want, I can keep the source files after a build in the cpan home directory. If you choose so then future builds will take the files from there. If you don't want to keep them, answer 0 to the next question. How big should the disk cache be for keeping the build directories with all the intermediate files? Cache size for build directory (in MB)? [100] By default, each time the CPAN module is started, cache scanning is performed to keep the cache size in sync. To prevent from this, disable the cache scanning with 'never'. Perform cache scanning (atstart or never)? [atstart] To considerably speed up the initial CPAN shell startup, it is possible to use Storable to create a cache of metadata. If Storable is not available, the normal index mechanism will be used. Cache metadata (yes/no)? [yes] The next option deals with the charset your terminal supports. In general CPAN is English speaking territory, thus the charset does not matter much, but some of the aliens out there who upload their software to CPAN bear names that are outside the ASCII range. If your terminal supports UTF-8, you say no to the next question, if it supports ISO-8859-1 (also known as LATIN1) then you say yes, and if it supports neither nor, your answer does not matter, you will not be able to read the names of some authors anyway. If you answer no, names will be output in UTF-8. Your terminal expects ISO-8859-1 (yes/no)? [yes] If you have one of the readline packages (Term::ReadLine::Perl, Term::ReadLine::Gnu, possibly others) installed, the interactive CPAN shell will have history support. The next two questions deal with the filename of the history file and with its size. If you do not want to set this variable, please hit SPACE RETURN to the following question. File to save your history? [] The CPAN module can detect when a module that which you are trying to build depends on prerequisites. If this happens, it can build the prerequisites for you automatically ('follow'), ask you for confirmation ('ask'), or just ignore them ('ignore'). Please set your policy to one of the three values. Policy on building prerequisites (follow, ask or ignore)? [ask] The CPAN module will need a few external programs to work properly. Please correct me, if I guess the wrong path for a program. Don't panic if you do not have some of them, just press ENTER for those. To disable the use of a download program, you can type a space followed by ENTER. Where is your gzip program? [/usr/bin/gzip] Where is your tar program? [/bin/tar] Where is your unzip program? [/usr/bin/unzip] Where is your make program? [/usr/bin/make] Where is your links program? [/usr/bin/links] Where is your wget program? [/usr/bin/wget] Warning: ncftpget not found in PATH Where is your ncftpget program? [] Warning: ncftp not found in PATH Where is your ncftp program? [] Where is your ftp program? [/ust/bin/ftp] Where is your gpg program? [/usr/bin/gpg] What is your favorite pager program? [/usr/bin/less] What is your favorite shell? [/bin/bash] Every Makefile.PL is run by perl in a separate process. Likewise we run 'make' and 'make install' in processes. If you have any parameters (e.g. PREFIX, LIB, UNINST or the like) you want to pass to the calls, please specify them here. If you don't understand this question, just press ENTER. Parameters for the 'perl Makefile.PL' command? Typical frequently used settings: PREFIX=~/perl non-root users (please see manual for more hin +ts) Your choice: [] Parameters for the 'make' command? Typical frequently used setting: -j3 dual processor system Your choice: [] Parameters for the 'make install' command? Typical frequently used setting: UNINST=1 to always uninstall potentially conflicting files Your choice: [] Sometimes you may wish to leave the processes run by CPAN alone without caring about them. As sometimes the Makefile.PL contains question you're expected to answer, you can set a timer that will kill a 'perl Makefile.PL' process after the specified time in seconds. If you set this value to 0, these processes will wait forever. This is the default and recommended setting. Timeout for inactivity during Makefile.PL? [0] If you're accessing the net via proxies, you can specify them in the CPAN configuration or via environment variables. The variable in the $CPAN::Config takes precedence. Your ftp_proxy? [$CPAN::Config] 192.168.178.36:8080 Your http_proxy? [ ] 192.168.178.36:8080 Your no_proxy? [$CPAN::Config] 192.168.178.36 If your proxy is an authenticating proxy, you can store your username permanently. If you do not want that, just press RETURN. You will then be asked for your username in every future session. Your proxy user id? [ ] Username Your password for the authenticating proxy can also be stored permanently on disk. If this violates your security policy, just press RETURN. You will then be asked for the password in every future session. Warning: Term::ReadKey seems not to be available, your password will be echoed to the terminal! Your proxy password? password Found /root/.cpan/sources/MIRRORED.BY as of Mon Feb 28 16:01:59 2011 I'd use that as a database of CPAN sites. If that is OK for you, please answer 'y', but if you want me to get a new database now, please answer 'n' to the following question. Shall I use the local database in /root/.cpan/sources/MIRRORED.BY? [y] + y Now we need to know where your favorite CPAN sites are located. Push a few sites onto the array (just in case the first on the array won't work). If you are mirroring CPAN to your local workstation, specify a file: URL. First, pick a nearby continent and country (you can pick several of each, separated by spaces, or none if you just want to keep your existing selections). Then, you will be presented with a list of URLs of CPAN mirrors in the countries you selected, along with previously selected URLs. Select some of those URLs, or just keep the old list. Finally, you will be prompted for any extra URLs -- file:, ftp:, or http: -- that host a CPAN mirror. Select your continent (or several nearby continents) [] 2 invalid items entered, try again Select your continent (or several nearby continents) []

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: cpan shell command
by Corion (Patriarch) on Feb 28, 2011 at 11:01 UTC
Re: cpan shell command
by marto (Cardinal) on Feb 28, 2011 at 11:00 UTC

    Which version of cpan are you using? Select a mirror (http://mirrors.cpan.org/) edit urllist accordingly. See the cpan README file (note that the link to check is http://mirrors.cpan.org/):

    "15) I'm frequently irritated with the CPAN shell's inability to help me select a good mirror.

    The urllist config parameter is yours. You can add and remove sites at will. You should find out which sites have the best uptodateness, bandwidth, reliability, etc. and are topologically close to you. Some people prefer fast downloads, others uptodateness, others reliability. You decide which to try in which order.

    Henk P. Penning maintains a site that collects data about CPAN sites:

    http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/henkp/mirmon/cpan.html

    Also, feel free to play with experimental features. Run

    o conf init randomize_urllist ftpstats_period ftpstats_size

    and choose your favorite parameters. After a few downloads running the "hosts" command will probably assist you in choosing the best mirror sites.

    Update: fixed link to the cpan README file.