perl -MCPAN problem

[Greg Barniskis]

At 02:22 PM 6/6/2004, JJB wrote:
>When I run  perl -MCPAN -e shell   from the command line I get
>"no route to host" message.
>[snip]
>
>I all ready issued this command from the command line
>setenv FTP_PASSIVE "1"

I've had my share of difficulties with this too, in the past, and found 
that the immediate solution was to select appropriate nearby mirror sites 
rather than trying to use ftp.perl.com. There is something funky going on 
there with DNS and load balancing, whereas I almost always get a clean 
connect with my selected mirror site. However, this "immediate" solution is 
not really the "correct" one.

Try not to use "perl -MCPAN -e shell" for updating your perl modules. 
Instead, use portupgrade to install perl modules from the ports collection 
if at all possible. Otherwise, you will tend to make portupgrade very 
unhappy. I am still learning the ups and downs of using portupgrade, but it 
is way more ups than downs (with one of the biggest downsides being trying 
to get it happy if you've previously done lots of MCPAN shell updates).

Greg Barniskis <gregb_at_scls.lib.wi.us>