Perl has become a language of choice for World Wide Web development, text processing, Internet services, mail filtering, systems administration, and most every other task requiring a portable and easily developed solution. Your virtual server has the Perl interpreter already installed at the following location.

~/usr/local/bin/perl

If you require the use of the Perl Standard Libraries or other Perl modules, you will need to install these into a local directory on your virtual server.

Installing the Perl Standard Libraries

Connect to your virtual server via Telnet or SSH and run the following commands that match your virtual server operating system.

FreeBSD % vinstall perl5

Removing the Perl Standard Libraries

If you would like to remove the Perl Standard Libraries you may do so by running the following commands that match your virtual server operating system.

FreeBSD % vrmperl

Installing Perl Modules

Perl Modules can greatly extend the functionality of your Perl programming language interpreter. By using prepared modules written by others, instead of using your own code, you can save yourself both time and effort. Many popular Perl5 modules can be easily installed on your virtual server.

Pre-Packaged Perl Modules

The following is a list of pre-packaged Perl Modules that can be installed on your virtual server.

• perl-lwp
  perl-lwp contains the LWP (Library for WWW access in Perl) modules as well as their dependencies. Note that Bundle::libnet (perl-libnet below) is required for optimal performance.
• perl-mysql
  perl-mysql contains the DBD::mysql database driver for Perl's DBI module (which must be installed separately, using vcpan).
• perl-pg
  perl-pg contains Pg and DBD::Pg, two Perl5 modules built to access PostgreSQL databases. DBD::Pg is for use with Perl's DBI module (which you must install separately) while Pg is for standalone access to Postgres.
• perl-msql (FreeBSD only)
  perl-msql includes all the necessary Perl libraries to talk to an mSQL database via Perl's DBI module (which must be installed separately, using vcpan).
• perl-libnet
  This is a collection of Perl5 modules which provides a simple and consistent programming interface (API) to the client side of various protocols used in the internet community.
• perl-gd
  This is an autoloadable interface module for libgd, a popular library for creating and manipulating PNG files. With this library you can create PNG images on the fly or modify existing files.
• perl-xml_parser
  XML::Parser is an XML parser written in Perl. (It makes use of Expat, so Expat must be installed on your server if you're going to use XML::Parser. Use vinstall expat.)

Installation

Connect to your server via Telnet or SSH and do the following, depending on your virtual server O/S.

FreeBSD % vinstall MODULE-NAME

Installing Other Perl Modules

If you require a module that is not included above or in the Perl Standard Libraries, you may be able use the vcpan utility to install it.

• Using vcpan to install Perl modules

For more information about installing Perl modules:

• Installing Your Own Perl Modules

perldoc - Perl Documentation Viewer

Do the following to install the perldoc utility, which you can use to view Perl documentation, on your virtual server.

FreeBSD % vinstall perldoc

This command links in a variety of required terminal macro definitions as well as several groff/troff/nroff files required for proper man page formatting.

Once installed, you may run the following command to access documentation for your favorite Perl5 module. Substitute the module name for MODULE::FAVORITE below.

FreeBSD % virtual perldoc MODULE::FAVORITE