I’ve been a perl programmer/scripter/hacker for many years now, and I will frequently use CPAN modules to be able to do the out-of-the ordinary. This small guide is intended to help people easily install these modules.

First, let’s get the CPAN module up to date:

$ sudo perl -MCPAN -e shell
(take defaults to set everything up)
cpan> exit
$ sudo perl -MCPAN -e shell
cpan> install Bundle::CPAN
(answer yes to the question about saving data)
cpan> reload cpan

Then, to install a module, it’s simply:
$ sudo perl -MCPAN -e shell
cpan> install <name of module>
cpan> exit