A detailed How-To for locally installing modules

[Corion]

As a lowly user without root access (on some machines), I sometimes have to install Perl modules to run other software. I know that it is, in general, possible to create a "local" installation, where all modules reside in their respective subdirectories to the program directory and/or the current directory.

But as I found, it is not as easy to give the "right" options to both, ppd and Makefile.pl, as I think it should be. If some kind soul could either point me to a page with detailed instructions on how to make both methods of installation (CPAN/ppd and manual installation) work with non-root, I'd be very grateful.

PS: By detailed, I mean a bit more than just "perl -w Makefile.pl --help" or "just add the right prefix" - something more user friendly.

[httptech]

It's really not that difficult, so a "detailed how-to" isn't much longer than a few paragraphs. Look near the bottom of this page, under How do I install the module?

Locally installing a binary module for Win32 is even easier, just unzip the package, go to the "x86" directory and unzip the .tar.gz file, then use lib './x86/blib/lib';

[misty]

Or.. using CPAN under *nix:

 
cpan> o conf makepl_arg PREFIX="/path/to/module"

Under Win32 using PPM:

PPM> set root c:\yourpath
PPM> set build c:\yourpath

[httptech]

If you want to use CPAN as a non-privleged user, you'll also have to create a local copy of CPAN/Config.pm in $HOME/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm and use it to override the default paths for the CPAN installation, otherwise you won't even be able to start the CPAN interface.

[hanenkamp]

I ran into an additional problem: a tool tries to mess around with the site directory. You also need to modify the CPAN configuration SITEPREFIX to your local perl directory in some cases.