[Melbourne-pm] How to build a local module repository

[Ian Macdonald]

Hi,

I was wondering if people had good solutions for distributing internal code
and known-to-work CPAN modules through a local repository. We have linux &
WinXP boxes on site and up to now the CPAN modules we need (60+) have been
installed on the WinXP boxes with a combination of CPAN and PPM, which has
been painful due to dependencies, availability of up-to-date PPM modules,
etc.

Code distribution for our internal code has been done by shared drives for
the WinXP boxes; our newer work has been on linux and we've just been
installing the code separately on each machine, which will bite us
eventually.

We're currently trialling Strawberry Perl as an alternative to ASPerl, and
we were looking to fix our code distribution at the same time by using
CPAN::Site to create a local repository holding our local code and any CPAN
modules we wished to freeze w.r.t. their versions; we've had several
instances where upgrades to CPAN modules have caused regression failures or
inconsistencies in our system. This way, all boxes could be installed with a
single cpan bundle and any OS-specific issues can be handled in the relevant
module's makefile.

Does anybody have any better ideas, or can see problems with where we're
going?

PS on a related note; we've also thought about installing CPAN modules on
new boxes by simply copying the perl/site directory from a working box.
Assuming that the OS matches down to the patch level, is this a safe
approach?
-- 
Ian Macdonald
datacomIT
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