CPAN first launch (Proxy Configuration)

Question

i need to run cpan trough proxy but when i try to configure i got errors and cant enter to cpan for the first time

root@srv-linux01:~# cpan

CPAN.pm requires configuration, but most of it can be done automatically.
If you answer 'no' below, you will enter an interactive dialog for each
configuration option instead.

Would you like to configure as much as possible automatically? [yes] no

On proxy settings:

If you're accessing the net via proxies, you can specify them in the
CPAN configuration or via environment variables. The variable in
the $CPAN::Config takes precedence.

 <ftp_proxy>
Your ftp_proxy? [] http://username:password@proxyIP:Port/  <---- is ok the information?

 <http_proxy>
Your http_proxy? [] http://username:password@proxyIP:Port/  <---- is ok the information?

 <no_proxy>
Your no_proxy? []



If your proxy is an authenticating proxy, you can store your username
permanently. If you do not want that, just press ENTER. You will then
be asked for your username in every future session.

Your proxy user id? []     <---- username is needed again?


Your password for the authenticating proxy can also be stored
permanently on disk. If this violates your security policy, just press
ENTER. You will then be asked for the password in every future
session.

Your proxy password?     

And before that i get this.

Fetching with HTTP::Tiny:
http://www.perl.org/CPAN/MIRRORED.BY.gz
Error downloading with HTTP::Tiny: Not a CODE reference at /usr/share/perl/5.18/CPAN/HTTP/Client.pm line 112, <STDIN> line 65.

Im using Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS and Perl 5.18.2

Thanks

Answer 1

Yeah, this is pretty exasperating.

This SO answer suggests that maybe installing LWP (and its 18 dependencies) makes the problem better. Gosh, I'm glad I didn't have to resort to that.

The issue I had with this was that I already had http_proxy, https_proxy, and the uppercase versions of both of those set (and exported) in my environment. Just about every other program (including wget and curl) is works fine when these environment variables are present. It made no sense to have to set these again, and then still have CPAN fail, when it's obviously calling out to wget!

What did finally work for me was to follow the instructions here, setting the CPAN http_proxy config setting to the empty string. (I also had previously removed the proxy username and password settings by hand-editing ~/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm.)

$ cpan  # or perl -MCPAN -e shell
cpan[1]> o conf http_proxy ""
cpan[2]> o conf ftp_proxy ""
cpan[3]> o conf proxy_user ""
cpan[4]> o conf proxy_pass ""
cpan[5]> o conf commit
cpan[6]> q

$ # I have a shell function that does basically this
$ export http_proxy="http://user:pass@proxyserver:8080"
$ for v in HTTP_PROXY https_proxy HTTPS_PROXY ftp_proxy FTP_PROXY; do
> export $v="$http_proxy"
> done

$ cpan i Devel::Repl   # or whatever

Then, presumably, wget was just using the environment variables defined before calling cpan, which of course works fine. If you have a proxy that requires authentication, this article on the Arch wiki has a little script that will prompt you for the credentials, and then set all the appropriate *_proxy and *_PROXY environment variables.

On that note, just as a public service announcement, please don't put important passwords in plain-text configuration files or in your ~/.bashrc.