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Perl
Perl has become a language of choice for World Wide Web development, text processing, Internet services, mail filtering, systems administration, and most every other task requiring a portable and easily developed solution. Your Virtual Private Server has the Perl interpreter already installed at the following location.

~/usr/local/bin/perl

If you require the use of the Perl Standard Libraries or other Perl modules, you may need to install these into a local directory on your server.

Installing the Perl Standard Libraries
Do the following, depending on your server O/S.

  • FreeBSD & Solaris [perl 5.6.1]
    Virtual Private Servers configured prior to April 10, 2002 have Perl5.00503 as the default version. If you wish to upgrade to the new version, connect to your server via Telnet or SSH and execute the following command.

    % vinstall perl5

    NOTE: The Perl Standard Libraries for FreeBSD and Solaris do not count toward your disk space quota.

    NOTE: Perl 5.00503 is still available for those who have scripts that may not be compatible with the newer version. To install the older version of Perl, run the following command from a Telnet or SSH prompt on your Virtual Private Server.

    % vinstall perl5.00503


  • BSD/OS Upgrade! [Perl 5.00404]
    Connect to your server via Telnet or SSH and execute the following command.

    % vinstall perl5

    NOTE: The Perl5 Standard Libraries for BSD/OS require approximately 11 MB of disk space.

  • Huh?
    If you don't know the Virtual Private Server O/S, try the following:

Removing the Perl5 Standard Libraries
If you would like to remove the Perl5 Standard Libraries you may do so by following the directions that match your Virtual Private Server O/S.

  • FreeBSD & Solaris
    Connect to your Virtual Private Server via Telnet or SSH and execute the following command.

    % vrmperl

  • BSD/OS Upgrade!
    Connect to your Virtual Private Server via Telnet or SSH and execute the following command.

    % rm -rf ~/usr/local/lib/perl5

Perl5 Modules
Perl5 Modules can greatly extend the functionality of your Perl programming language interpreter. By using prepared modules written by others, instead of using your own code, you can save yourself both time and effort. Many popular Perl5 modules can be easily installed on your Virtual Private Server.

perldoc - Perl Documentation Viewer
Do the following to install the perldoc utility, which you can use to view Perl5 documentation, on your Virtual Private Server.

This command links in a variety of required terminal macro definitions as well as several groff/troff/nroff files required for proper man page formatting.

Once installed, you may run the following command to access documentation for your favorite Perl5 module. Substitute the module name for MODULE::FAVORITE below.

% virtual perldoc MODULE::FAVORITE

More Information
There is a wealth of available Perl information and documentation online.