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Installing Perl Modules (perl DBI / DBD::Oracle) on Solaris

If you have ever tried to install perl modules on Solaris, then you’ll have shared my pain. Solaris, rather helpfully, comes with its own installation of perl, straight off the DVD. You get an install of something like 5.8.4, depending on your version of Solaris.

bash-3.00# which perl
/usr/bin/perl
bash-3.00# perl -v

This is perl, v5.8.4 built for sun4-solaris-64int
(with 32 registered patches, see perl -V for more detail)

Copyright 1987-2004, Larry Wall

Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License or the
GNU General Public License, which may be found in the Perl 5 source kit.

Complete documentation for Perl, including FAQ lists, should be found on
this system using `man perl' or `perldoc perl'.  If you have access to the
Internet, point your browser at http://www.perl.com/, the Perl Home Page.

bash-3.00# 

Marvellous. However, there is a snag. If you use perl in anger you will want to update some of the perl modules. Or even install some new ones that aren’t included by default. I had to climb this particular hill recently when I needed the perl DBI module to access a database, more specifically, the DBD::Oracle module to access an Oracle database.

The most straight forward and popular method for installing perl modules is to use CPAN. Whether you use CPAN or compile by hand, the first, not so small issuette you will hit is that the perl in Solaris is compiled with the Sun Studio compilers.

There is a solution for this that means you can use the GNU compiling tools under /usr/sfw, but it does take a little tweaking to get things straight. The solution is to use /usr/perl5/bin/perlgcc -MCPAN -e shell. This will fire up a CPAN shell for you to use. Below is an account of the configuration tweaks I had to do to get this CPAN shell to download, compile and install my modules.

The first time you run it, you’ll be asked a bewilering array of questions. Do not let it autoconfigure, instead answer [yes] to being ready for manual configuration. You are ready. You just don’t know it yet. Fortunately for the most part, the defaults will work, except for the paths / settings below. If a path to a binary is missing (lynx for example), leave it blank, you won’t need it.

Where is your tar program? [/usr/sbin/tar] /usr/sfw/bin/gtar

Warning: make not found in PATH
Where is your make program? [] /usr/sfw/bin/gmake

Warning: wget not found in PATH
Where is your wget program? [] /usr/sfw/bin/wget
Warning: ncftpget not found in PATH
Where is your ncftpget program? [] 
Warning: ncftp not found in PATH

The configuration tool will ask you to input a URL for downloads, for some reason it only shows ftp URLs even though you set the wget location. You are forced to accept one and remove it later (and add an HTTP one) even if you don’t want to use ftp.

(1) ftp://cpan.etla.org/pub/CPAN
(2) ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/CPAN/
(3) ftp://ftp.mirror.8086.net/sites/CPAN/
(4) ftp://ftp.mirror.anlx.net/CPAN/
(5) ftp://ftp.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.funet.fi/pub/languages/perl/CPAN/
(6) ftp://ftp.plig.net/pub/CPAN/
(7) ftp://ftp.ticklers.org/pub/CPAN/
(8) ftp://mirror.bytemark.co.uk/CPAN/
(9) ftp://mirror.ox.ac.uk/sites/www.cpan.org/
(10) ftp://mirror.sov.uk.goscomb.net/pub/CPAN/
(11) ftp://mirror.tje.me.uk/pub/mirrors/ftp.cpan.org/
(12) ftp://mirrors.uk2.net/pub/CPAN/
Select as many URLs as you like (by number),
put them on one line, separated by blanks, e.g. '1 4 5' [] 

After that, use ‘o conf’ to check your settings:

cpan> o conf     
CPAN::Config options from /usr/perl5/5.8.4/lib/CPAN/Config.pm:
    commit             Commit changes to disk
    defaults           Reload defaults from disk
    init               Interactive setting of all options

    build_cache        10
    build_dir          /.cpan/build
    cache_metadata     1
    cpan_home          /.cpan
    dontload_hash     
    ftp                "" 
    ftp_proxy          
    getcwd             cwd
    gpg                
    gzip               /usr/bin/gzip
    histfile           /.cpan/histfile
    histsize           100
    http_proxy         
    inactivity_timeout 0
    index_expire       1
    inhibit_startup_message 0
    keep_source_where  /.cpan/sources
    lynx               
    make               /usr/sfw/bin/gmake
    make_arg           
    make_install_arg   
    makepl_arg         
    ncftp              
    ncftpget           
    no_proxy           
    pager              /usr/bin/less
    prerequisites_policy ask
    scan_cache         atstart
    shell              /sbin/sh
    tar                /usr/sfw/bin/gtar
    term_is_latin      1
    unzip              /usr/bin/unzip
    urllist           
        ftp://mirror.ox.ac.uk/sites/www.cpan.org/
    wget               /usr/sfw/bin/wget

Notice that there is no entry for cc/gcc; you have to configure this through the shell environment, so make sure that a suitable compiler is in your PATH (/usr/sfw/bin/gcc);

To fix that url entry, use ‘o conf urllist shift’ to remove the bad entry, and o conf urllist unshift [new url] to add the one you need:

cpan> o conf urllist shift

cpan> o conf urllist
    urllist           
Type 'o conf' to view configuration edit options

cpan> o conf urllist unshift http://mirror.ox.ac.uk/sites/www.cpan.org/
    urllist           
Type 'o conf' to view configuration edit options

cpan> o conf urllist
    urllist           
        http://mirror.ox.ac.uk/sites/www.cpan.org/
Type 'o conf' to view configuration edit options

The basic rule for the install of the DBD::Oracle module install is that you have to be able to connect to a test database using a test user from the shell where you launch the CPAN tool. This is because CPAN will use your current environment to connect to a database when it runs ‘make test’. You really MUST read the README that is supplied with the module because some elements may not be correct for your build, but here is my experience (I didn’t really use scott/tiger, but you get the idea):

Set environment variables, you also need to make sure something sensible is set in your tnsnames.ora. You can also use the TWO_TASK variable, the README suggests this and it seems to work. This doesn’t remove the need for a valid tnsnames.ora, of course.

bash-3.00# export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/lib:/usr/dt/lib:/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/jdbc/lib:/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/lib32
bash-3.00# export ORACLE_USERID=scott/tiger
bash-3.00# export PATH=/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/bin:/usr/sfw/bin
bash-3.00# 
bash-3.00# export ORACLE_HOME=/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1

Make sure your tools look good… ahem.

bash-3.00# which gmake
/usr/sfw/bin/gmake
bash-3.00# which gcc
/usr/sfw/bin/gcc

Run the CPAN shell again and install your module;

bash-3.00# /usr/perl5/bin/perlgcc -MCPAN -e shell
Terminal does not support AddHistory.

cpan shell -- CPAN exploration and modules installation (v1.7601)
ReadLine support available (try 'install Bundle::CPAN')

cpan> install DBD::Oracle
CPAN: Storable loaded ok
LWP not available

....
....

If you get this error:

t/10general.............Can't locate object method "no_diag" via package "Test::Builder" at t/nchar_test_lib.pl line 53.

You probably don’t have the correct version of Test::Builder. You can check this in the perldoc Test::Builder on your system; look for no_diag. The fix, of course is to install the new version using your CPAN Shell:

cpan> install Test::Builder
Running install for module Test::Builder
Running make for M/MS/MSCHWERN/Test-Simple-0.96.tar.gz

....

Installing /usr/perl5/5.8.4/man/man3/Test::Builder::Tester.3
Installing /usr/perl5/5.8.4/man/man3/Test::Builder::Module.3
Installing /usr/perl5/5.8.4/man/man3/Test::Tutorial.3
Writing /usr/perl5/5.8.4/lib/sun4-solaris-64int/auto/Test/Simple/.packlist
Appending installation info to /usr/perl5/5.8.4/lib/sun4-solaris-64int/perllocal.pod
  /usr/sfw/bin/gmake install  -- OK

After this, your DBD::Oracle install should work.

cpan> install DBD::Oracle
Running install for module DBD::Oracle
Running make for T/TI/TIMB/DBD-Oracle-1.26.tar.gz
...
Writing /usr/perl5/site_perl/5.8.4/sun4-solaris-64int/auto/DBD/Oracle/.packlist
Appending installation info to /usr/perl5/5.8.4/lib/sun4-solaris-64int/perllocal.pod
  /usr/sfw/bin/gmake install  -- OK

cpan> quit

Finally you can test with:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w      

use DBI ;

my $db_handle = DBI->connect("dbi:Oracle:host=DBserver;sid=sitst;port=1624", "username", "password", {AutoCommit => 0})
  or die "Cannot connect to Oracle on beta: $DBI::errstr\n";

Or, on the command line;

# perl -e 'use DBD::Oracle'
# echo $?
0
# 

Hopefully, this may save some pain.

Paul.

: 19 Nov 2010 14:33 |  Tags: Dbd Dbi Modules Oracle Perl Solaris |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem