DCPM: Problems with an unusual module

[Neil Williams]

I have a new-ish SourceForge project built around an ancient bibliography 
protocol called Z39.50 which caches ISBN data on books.
http://www.isbn.org.uk/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/isbnsearch/
http://perl.z3950.org/
http://indexdata.dk/yaz/
http://lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/gateway.html

My project aims include creating a distributed index of all ISBN titles as 
Z39.50 cannot tell me which server (from the gateway list) would hold which 
record.

To do this, I've created the initial code and I'm working on the framework to 
link all these sites together. The code is on the sourceforge link, v0.2-2 is 
the latest and v0.3 will be the first with the framework in the next few 
weeks.

Problem:
Net::Z3950 requires the YAZ toolkit to be installed prior to using CPAN to 
obtain the perl module. The toolkit is the usual tarball with the usual 
./configure make make install triage command set. The requirement for root to 
perform the make install is quite a hurdle for getting the project on enough 
servers and to cache all records, I am going to need quite a few servers! 
(>100,000 new ISBN's pa just in UK).

I've just come back from Linux Expo and I was talking to one of the Perl 
mongers on the Debian stand about my problem and his comments can be 
summarised as:
"There is no good reason for a toolkit required by Perl to be installed as 
root"
The scripts I use in my package, have to set the port number at runtime 
(lowest port # 210) so they are not privileged ports. 
The protocol itself works over normal TCP/IP.

He suggested I talk to some local Perl mongers about writing a HOWTO for the 
SourceForge package that allows anyone downloading the package to install 
Net::Z3950 and MARC::Record in a non-privileged directory (like 
public_html/cgi-bin/) AND upload a customised build YAZ toolkit into 
somewhere like /tools or whatever - just something above the public_html 
website directories but still accessible through normal user FTP - i.e. 
without having to bug the webhost sysadmin (as I had to).

Provisos:
On Debian, I had problems with YAZ and Net::Z3950 - 
http://isbnsearch.sourceforge.net/servers.html
(On Debian 3.0 Woody stable, I had to install the debian package AND compile 
the source from the tarball before Net::Z3950 would install.)
Doing either alone wasn't sufficient, doing both in either order was fine.

Is anyone able to help with how this can be done?

(In order to test the instructions, I'd also need a quick reminder of how to 
uninstall Perl modules, ta! The test box will be Debian 3 stable. If it works 
on that it should work on any Linux!)

-- 

Neil Williams
=============
http://www.codehelp.co.uk/
http://www.dclug.org.uk/

http://www.biglumber.com/x/web?qs=0x8801094A28BCB3E3
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