Proxy must be specified as absolute URI

UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
1

I encounter frequently a problem when installing Perl modules as follows:

perl -MCPAN -e 'install Family::Module'

The error message is:

Proxy must be specified as absolute URI; ' ' is not at /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 2357

even though I am not behind a proxy. Forcing to install the module as such:

perl -MCPAN -e force 'install Family::Module'

does not lead to any message, but still leads to error messages when running the Perl program that depends on the module.
What can be done to resolve this?

2

You've got either the ftp_proxy or http_proxy setting for CPAN set to a single blank. Start the CPAN shell with

perl -MCPAN -eshell

and enter this

o conf ftp_proxy ''
o conf http_proxy ''

(That's two single quotes with nothing between them)

3

Thank you for your swift response. What can I do upon installation of CPAN and Perl to have these settings from the start? Which configuration file needs these settings?

---------- Post updated at 19:07 ---------- Previous update was at 19:06 ----------

Also, I still get the same error message:

# perl -MCPAN -e 'install XML::Simple'
CPAN: Storable loaded ok
Going to read /root/.cpan/Metadata
  Database was generated on Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:27:06 GMT
Running install for module XML::Simple
Running make for G/GR/GRANTM/XML-Simple-2.18.tar.gz
CPAN: LWP::UserAgent loaded ok
Proxy must be specified as absolute URI; ' ' is not at /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 2357
4

If you've verified that the settings work, you can save it by entering

o conf commit

in the CPAN shell.

CPAN settings are kept in /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/CPAN/Config.pm (global) or ~/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm (user-specific)

5

Thank you for your response. So the following from the Config.pm file is correct and is equivalent to your entries that one can do within CPAN?

'ftp_proxy' => q[ ],
'http_proxy' => q[],