Installed CPAN Modules in Problematic Location

Question

I am using CentOS 7 and seting up a new server.

Whilst logged in as root, I have installed multiple perl modules through CPAN. Unfortunately, they seem to have installed inside root's home directory. I didn't notice this until all the modules were installed, but most of them have locations like this now:

/root/perl5/lib/perl5/5.16.3/x86_64-linux-thread-multi 
/root/perl5/lib/perl5/5.16.3 
/root/perl5/lib/perl5/x86_64-linux-thread-multi 
/root/perl5/lib/perl5 /usr/local/lib64/perl5 

This means that, for users other than root, these modules essentially do not exist, as the permissions lock them out of that directory.

I know I could solve this by giving all users read access to /root, but I'd rather not.

So, I have a few specific questions to ask:

• What did I do wrong? Did I skip an option in CPAN the first time it ran? (CPAN config is pasted below)
• What is the best way to clean this up? I presume I need to uninstall the modules, change my config, and then reinstall them? Experienced advice is appreciated.
• What is the ideal general installation directory for CentOS 7? Where do I want to move them to? I assumed CPAN would put them in an ideal default location.

All advice gratefully received.

cat MyConfig.pm

$CPAN::Config = {
  'applypatch' => q[],
  'auto_commit' => q[1],
  'build_cache' => q[100],
  'build_dir' => q[/root/.cpan/build],
  'build_dir_reuse' => q[0],
  'build_requires_install_policy' => q[yes],
  'bzip2' => q[],
  'cache_metadata' => q[1],
  'check_sigs' => q[0],
  'colorize_output' => q[0],
  'commandnumber_in_prompt' => q[1],
  'connect_to_internet_ok' => q[1],
  'cpan_home' => q[/root/.cpan],
  'ftp_passive' => q[1],
  'ftp_proxy' => q[],
  'getcwd' => q[cwd],
  'gpg' => q[/bin/gpg],
  'gzip' => q[/bin/gzip],
  'halt_on_failure' => q[0],
  'histfile' => q[/root/.cpan/histfile],
  'histsize' => q[100],
  'http_proxy' => q[],
  'inactivity_timeout' => q[0],
  'index_expire' => q[1],
  'inhibit_startup_message' => q[0],
  'keep_source_where' => q[/root/.cpan/sources],
  'load_module_verbosity' => q[none],
  'make' => q[/bin/make],
  'make_arg' => q[],
  'make_install_arg' => q[],
  'make_install_make_command' => q[/bin/make],
  'makepl_arg' => q[],
  'mbuild_arg' => q[],
  'mbuild_install_arg' => q[],
  'mbuild_install_build_command' => q[./Build],
  'mbuildpl_arg' => q[],
  'no_proxy' => q[],
  'pager' => q[/bin/less],
  'patch' => q[/bin/patch],
  'perl5lib_verbosity' => q[none],
  'prefer_external_tar' => q[1],
  'prefer_installer' => q[MB],
  'prefs_dir' => q[/root/.cpan/prefs],
  'prerequisites_policy' => q[follow],
  'scan_cache' => q[atstart],
  'shell' => q[/bin/bash],
  'show_unparsable_versions' => q[0],
  'show_upload_date' => q[0],
  'show_zero_versions' => q[0],
  'tar' => q[/bin/tar],
  'tar_verbosity' => q[none],
  'term_is_latin' => q[1],
  'term_ornaments' => q[1],
  'test_report' => q[0],
  'trust_test_report_history' => q[0],
  'unzip' => q[],
  'urllist' => [q[http://mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net/CPAN/], q[http://ww
+w.mirrorservice.org/sites/cpan.perl.org/CPAN/], q[http://cpan.mirrors
+.ovh.net/ftp.cpan.org/]],
  'use_sqlite' => q[0],
  'version_timeout' => q[15],
  'wget' => q[/bin/wget],
  'yaml_load_code' => q[0],
  'yaml_module' => q[YAML],
};
1;
__END__

Answer 1

Simplest solution (logged in as root)

vi ~/.bashrc

comment out the following lines:

    #export PERL_LOCAL_LIB_ROOT="$PERL_LOCAL_LIB_ROOT:/root/perl5";
    #export PERL_MB_OPT="--install_base /root/perl5";
    #export PERL_MM_OPT="INSTALL_BASE=/root/perl5";
    #export PERL5LIB="/root/perl5/lib/perl5:$PERL5LIB";
    #export PATH="/root/perl5/bin:$PATH";

Log out, log back in as root, and now cpan will install to the correct system directories.

I would just delete the /root/perl5 directory and start afresh.