How do I automate CPAN configuration?

Question

The first time you run cpan from the command line, you are prompted for answers to various questions. How do you automate cpan and install modules non-interactively from the

Answer 1

One way is to take the CPAN/Config.pm (or ~/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm) created after one run from one system, and install it as ~/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm on the system you want to automate. Another way is to run the following to create the MyConfig.pm file for you (one thing missing below is the actual values for the urllist parameter which you will have to fill in with appropriate values for CPAN mirrors):

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use Config;

$ENV{PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT}=1;
$ENV{PERL_MM_NONINTERACTIVE}=1;
$ENV{AUTOMATED_TESTING}=1;

# get the path to the library
my $libpath = $Config{privlib};

# force CPAN::FirstTime to not default to manual
# setup, since initial CPAN setup needs to be automated
{
  local @ARGV = "$libpath/CPAN/FirstTime.pm";
  my @source = <>;
  $source[72] =~ s/\byes\b/no/ or die "Could not auto configure CPAN";
  eval join('', @source) or die "Error executing CPAN::FirstTime: $@";
}

CPAN::FirstTime::init("$libpath/CPAN/Config.pm");

delete $CPAN::Config->{links};
$CPAN::Config->{auto_commit} = '0';
$CPAN::Config->{check_sigs} = '0';
$CPAN::Config->{halt_on_failure} = '0';
$CPAN::Config->{make_install_make_command} = '/usr/bin/make';
$CPAN::Config->{mbuild_arg} = '';
$CPAN::Config->{mbuildpl_arg} = '';
$CPAN::Config->{mbuild_install_arg} = '';
$CPAN::Config->{show_upload_date} = '';
$CPAN::Config->{tar_verbosity} = '1';
$CPAN::Config->{trust_test_report_history} = '0';
$CPAN::Config->{use_sqlite} = '0';
$CPAN::Config->{yaml_load_code} = '0';
$CPAN::Config->{urllist}
  = [qw(http://... ftp://... etc...)];
$CPAN::Config->{connect_to_internet_ok} = '1';
$CPAN::Config->{perl5lib_verbosity}     = 'v';
$CPAN::Config->{prefer_installer}       = 'MB';
$CPAN::Config->{build_requires_install_policy} = 'no';
$CPAN::Config->{term_ornaments}         = '1';
$CPAN::Config->{mbuild_install_build_command} = './Build';

mkdir ".cpan/CPAN" or die "Can't create .cpan/CPAN: $!";
CPAN::Config->commit(".cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm");

CPAN::install('Bundle::CPAN');
CPAN::install('JSON');
CPAN::install('JSON::XS');
# etc.

exit 0;