Getting mods to install?

[news]

I'm trying to install Spamassassin on our RedHat ES2, and running the
perl Makefile, it says I need to install some mods.
Like:
REQUIRED module missing: Digest::SHA1
optional module missing: Net:NS
optional module missing: Mail::SPF::Query
optional module missing: IP::Country
optional module missing: Razor2
optional module missing: Net::Ident
optional module missing: IO::Socket::INET6
optional module missing: IO::Socket::SSL
optional module missing: Time::HiRes
optional module out of date: Getopt::Long
optional module missing: Archive::Tar
optional module missing: IO::Zlib

Ibviously I looked on the Spamassassin site, FAQ, for Perl mod info,
and found none.
I searched the newsgroup for installing mods, and I find a lot of
messages about problems with install, but nothing about how you get
mods in the first place.

I've never had to deal with Perl before, so I guess it's obvious to
someone who knows about Perl, but I can't seem to find the first step
to getting/installing mods.

Any clue-by-fours anyone can provide?
Thanks!
Liam

 

[Keith Keller]

I'm trying to install Spamassassin on our RedHat ES2, and running the
perl Makefile, it says I need to install some mods.

Spamassassin *is* a Perl module, so you install the other modules the
same way. Their downloads page suggests:

Perl users: SpamAssassin can be downloaded from CPAN.

Substitute the name of your module for SpamAssassin, and you can install
(almost) any Perl module. CPAN does a whole lot more, too, including
hunt down and install dependencies if you ask it to. Try

perldoc CPAN

or

http://search.cpan.org/~jhi/perl-5.8.0/lib/CPAN.pm

for more info.

--keith

 

[usenet]

CPAN does a whole lot more, too, including
hunt down and install dependencies if you ask it to. Try

perldoc CPAN

When you run perl -MCPAN for the first time, it will ask you what you
want to do about pre-reqs (ask, follow, ignore). The default is "ask"
but you probably want to select "follow" so it will automagically
install all the pre-reqs for you.

 

[news]

Spamassassin *is* a Perl module, so you install the other modules the
same way. Their downloads page suggests:

Perl users: SpamAssassin can be downloaded from CPAN.

Substitute the name of your module for SpamAssassin, and you can install
(almost) any Perl module. CPAN does a whole lot more, too, including
hunt down and install dependencies if you ask it to. Try

perldoc CPAN

Wow! That's way cool. It's kind of like a "yum" in a way.
I guess I didn't get that from the examples I saw. I saw the CPAN
commands here and there in newsgroup postings, but didn't understand
that it was downloading the module in the process.

Thanks for the help!
Liam

 

[Keith Keller]

When you run perl -MCPAN for the first time,

Or, for recent versions of CPAN, just run cpan from the commandline.
(Hey, those seven characters could be better spent elsewhere!)

--keith