User CPAN installation broken

Here is a workaround for a common problem. You do not have root access to perl but want to install perl libraries. Normally the user can use CPAN with local libraries (PERL5LIB). Sometimes CPAN gets comfused and you get an error like this: Your configuration suggests "/root/.cpan" as your CPAN.pm working directory. I could not create this directory due to this error: mkdir /root/.cpan: Permission denied at /data/eva/perl/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/CPAN.pm line 552 I google around and found this solution:

Execute the following procedure (it worked for me, though I am not sure if all steps are necessary): 1. Create a directory for the perl modules in your HOME $ mkdir ~/perl5lib 2. Create ~/.cpan and ~/.cpan/CPAN directories: $ mkdir ~/.cpan $ mkdir ~/.cpan/CPAN 3. Create a Config.pm for the CPAN module with $CPAN::Config empty $ echo "\$CPAN::Config = {}"> ~/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm 4. Execute again: $ perl -MCPAN -e shell This time (if all goes well) it will prompt you for the empty fields in $CPAN::Config.

Programming Perl on Windows

I have decided to try my hand at Perl programming on the Windows platform. I downloaded and installed ActiveState Perl on my Windows XP workstation. Installation was smooth, but….how did I use CPAN to download the modules I needed. I know Active Perl has the PPM (Perl package manager), but…not all the modules I need are available. Perhaps there is a way to install them manually.

I wrote a small win Perl application using the Win32 module. It does not do much. It spawns a dialogue that asks the user a yes or no question and then presents a different dialogue based on the response. Then it exits.

Nessus review by PC Magazine

Nessus review by PC Magazine: "Based on a client/server architecture, Nessus lets users run the administrative console, which executes vulnerability scans and holds databases on a machine other than the ser".

I personally think PC Magazine was dismissive of Nessus. These magazines tend to be biased against the non-Windows platforms. I have not done so myself but one can write one's own security scans via the Nessus plug-in language (NASL) and there is at least on Perl module available to programmatically control Nessus. My employer has built a Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL, and Perl based vulnerability assessment application around the Nessus security scanner.