Installing Perl modules on Solaris 10 - An experience

In recent times I got a task to perform few Perl modules installation. To build the module in question (Compress::Raw::Zlib), I downloaded the module from CPAN (Comprehensive Perl Archive Network), verified that the MD5 checksum was correct, and used the following steps to compile the module:


# perl Makefile.PL
# make
# make install

The ‘make Makefile.PL’ completed successfully, but the make failed with the following errors:

# make
cp lib/Compress/Raw/Zlib.pm blib/lib/Compress/Raw/Zlib.pm
AutoSplitting blib/lib/Compress/Raw/Zlib.pm (blib/lib/auto/Compress/Raw/Zlib)
/usr/bin/perl /usr/perl5/5.8.4/lib/ExtUtils/xsubpp -typemap /usr/perl5/5.8.4/lib/ExtUtils/typemap -typemap typemap Zlib.xs > Zlib.xsc && mv Zlib.xsc Zlib.c
cc -c -I./zlib-src -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -xarch=v8 -D_TS_ERRNO -xO3 -xspace -xildoff -DVERSION=\"2.037\" -DXS_VERSION=\"2.037\" -KPIC "-I/usr/perl5/5.8.4/lib/sun4-solaris-64int/CORE" -DNO_VIZ -DGZIP_OS_CODE=3 -DUSE_PPPORT_H Zlib.c
/usr/ucb/cc: language optional software package not installed
*** Error code 1
make: Fatal error: Command failed for target `Zlib.o'

Above output indicate an error related to compiler & it is clearly showing that it is looking for cc complier however I was trying to build the module using gcc and not the cc (Sun studio) compiler but it seems like by default modules Makefile is referring to Sun Studio compiler and not the gcc complier. I do not have Sun Studio compiler on our systems & as this is being license software I can not even simply install it on any server due to compliance restrictions.

After doing a little bit research on the issue, I found that there is a way to fix this problem.  If you want to use gcc to build all Perl modules on a system, you can permanently remove the Sun Studio compiler references by adjusting the “cccdlflags” and “optimize” variables in /usr/perl5/5.8.4/lib/sun4-solaris-64int/Config.pm:

root@XXXX:/usr/perl5/5.8.4/lib/sun4-solaris-64int# egrep '(KPIC|O3)' Config.pm

cccdlflags='-KPIC'
optimize='-xO3 -xspace -xildoff'

After removing the above entries make was successful with gcc complier.

There is yet another method to do the Perl module installation even not performing above changes to Config.pm. You can simply build Perl module using –

- /usr/perl5/bin/perlgcc Makefile.PL
- /usr/sfw/bin/gmake
- /usr/sfw/bin/gmake test
- /usr/sfw/bin/gmake install

What we were discussing in above is how to install Perl modules manually and how to tackle with complier related issues. There is yet another automated method to install Perl module and which is most preferred and quick method to do it.

Simply export the http_proxy environment variable with your proxy server name or IP address and valid port number so that you can directly reach to the internet via proxy.


# http_proxy=myproxy:8080; export http_proxy
# perl -MCPAN -e shell

If this is the first time this script is run it will ask a lot of questions and store the results in Config.pm

Then simply run –

1. Start the CPAN shell script: /usr/perl5/bin/perl -MCPAN -e shell.
2. Install a module, e.g.: install CGI::Session
3. Exit the shell script: exit

To check the already installed modules execute –


# perl -e 'use HTML::Parser;'

If nothing is returned, Perl was able to locate the module. Otherwise, you will see “Can't locate HTML/Parser.pm in @INC”

One more experience to share here. I installed Threads Perl module however user was not able to execute his scripts due to current Perl distribution was not build or complied with “useithreads” configuration option hence he requested to recompile Perl distribution with threads option enable.

Here is a string that I use to compile Perl distribution with threads option.


# sh Configure -Dusethreads -Dprefix=/usr/perl5/5.14.1

With new Perl compilation user was able to execute his scripts with threads module.

Hope this document will help to those who are new to this work.