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I have a Linux server that has no access to the internet (access is prevented by a firewall). I would like to install a new Perl. What are my options and what is the best way to do this? The system Perl (included in OS installation) must remain unchanged.

I have been using perlbrew and I think it is the best way to do an online installation. But all the steps involved in perlbrew seem to require internet access: you download it from the net, it downloads new Perl versions from the net etc. and I haven't found a glue how to make it work offline.

If perlbrew is out of question I could build Perl from source into a custom location on the server. I assume that this could end up being complicated, time-consuming and error-prone. And every time I update Perl I have make a new build manually.

There can also be other ways to install that I'm not currently aware of. And of course I could stick with the system Perl but it is an outdated version and I'm already using the new syntax features. Or I could start negotiations to change the firewall policy to allow internet access for perlbrew.

XDF
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4 Answers4

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But all the steps involved in perlbrew seem to require internet access

Not if properly configured.

To install perlbrew itself off-line, install the App-perlbrew dist. Following its dependencies manually is a chore, so instead prepare a MiniCPAN mirror (with -p to include Perl dists), take it over to the target machine and configure CPAN to use the local mirror. Run cpan App::perlbrew to install.

After perlbrew is installed, run its mirror command to configure a CPAN mirror into $PERLBREWROOT/Config.pm. Edit this file to change it to the local MiniCPAN mirror. Drop Perl dist tarballs into $PERLBREWROOT/dists/.

Be aware that compiling Perl requires a working C compiler toolchain, and optionally the development files for libdb (BerkeleyDB) and gdbm. (Read the INSTALL file once over, even though perlbrew's autoconfiguration and Perl's configure.SH defaults hide these details from you.)

The compiler toolchain is probably much more difficult to procure off-line, unless the OS installation has already been used before for compiling other C stuff.

daxim
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There's nothing that special about perlbrew. If you aren't going to use it to download the Perl sources, it's not saving you that much. Once you have the Perl sources, you just need to configure and install it:

% ./Configure -des -Dprefix=/path/to/installation
% make install

Once done, everything for that Perl is under that installation path.

I dislike perlbrew mostly because it hides from people how amazingly simple this task is so they feel like they can't do it on their own.

Peter Mortensen
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brian d foy
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    Aside from the initial installation, using [App::perbrew](https://metacpan.org/module/App::perlbrew) offers many nice conveniences. – JRFerguson Apr 20 '12 at 13:16
  • I don't think switch is a convenience at all. – brian d foy Apr 20 '12 at 13:31
  • While I agree that `switch` isn't that useful, I do like the `exec` option to run with all installed Perls and of the `use` option to temporarily use an alternate Perl. YMMV :-) – JRFerguson Apr 20 '12 at 14:00
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Have you considered attacking it from a different direction? Keeping this up-to-date is going to be a pain if you have to request internet access each time. Likewise, if you've missed out/misconfigured any packages in your CPAN mirror it's difficult to correct once you're actually trying to use them.

Perhaps just build a small VM with a cut-down linux + perl + modules. Keep that up-to-date at your end and just take the whole lot in on a USB stick. You'd have a known-working easy-to-setup installation.

Richard Huxton
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What I personally do is using git checkout when I'm offline (and not on vacation). Once you have the whole git work directory, it's trivial to build any released version by checking out the tags:

git checkout v5.17.4
git clean -f # cleanup previously compiled .o files etc
sh ./Configure ...

Depending on how you can transfer files to your host, this can be handy, since you you can also setup a private git repo there so other computer can git push new commits to there.

gugod
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  • This may actually be quite handy if you need several different versions of Perl, and git also allows you to push your versions around on a local network. You can also manage your CPAN modules that way, see http://www.effectiveperlprogramming.com/blog/60 . – VolkA Dec 18 '12 at 09:40