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=head1 Perl for RT
RT runs on Perl and there are many different approaches to installing
and maintaining your Perl installation. This document reviews some of the
options and pros and cons of different approaches.
Perl has been around for a long time, so many different versions are
installed on systems everywhere. We try to maintain a reasonable
timeframe for backward compatibility, but beyond a certain age, running
old versions of Perl is no longer safe or even possible with modern
applications. We currently require at least version 5.10.1 which is
old enough to be default on OSes from many years ago, but sufficiently
new to support RT and the modules RT depends on.
=head1 Default System Perls
All Linux and Unix-type variants come with a version of Perl installed
and many provide Perl and many CPAN modules as packages for easier
maintenance and management. You can run RT on the vendor Perl on your
system as long as it meets the minimum version requirement.
When you run C<make testdeps> as part of your RT installation,
you'll likely find that the RT will require you to upgrade some of the
dependent modules to newer versions than those provided in the
vendor packages. If you have any IT policy requirements to only use
vendor packaged versions of software, this might be an issue. If
so, you can consider installing an RT-only version of Perl.
See L<"Stand-alone Perl">.
Occasionally vendors introduce their own changes to their packaged version
of Perl or modules and these might create issues when running RT.
Also, the system Perl is also often used by other utilities on the system
and modifying the default Perl too heavily can introduce issues for these
other applications which might rely on an older version of a module, for
example. Consider these factors before modifying your system Perl.
Many packaging systems restore the system to the official packaged
version of software when updates are applied. Since a Perl update is
likely to have many or all packaged Perl modules as dependencies, this
means an update to the vendor Perl will restore all of the modules you
upgraded to their previous version. Therefore, if you decide to use
the vendor Perl on your system, you need to note somewhere that you'll
need to upgrade RT's dependencies any time the system Perl packages are
updated. The L<rt-test-dependencies> tool provided in RT's sbin
directory can help with this.
=head1 Stand-alone Perl
To avoid having modules unexpectedly downgraded as described above,
we typically recommend installing a separate Perl to run RT. In doing so
you take on the extra responsibility to patch that Perl if necessary,
but you can plan this work as necessary rather than being surprised if
RT has issues after a security package update is applied.
Having a Perl version installed specifically for RT gives you the flexibility
to upgrade or install a new module if needed to add a new extension or address
a bug. You can then test just RT and not worry about possible side-effects
on your system.
You can install this Perl in an alternate location like C</opt/perl>, or
to make it clear it's for RT, even C</opt/rt4/perl>. To make future
upgrades easier, install in a version-specific directory like
C</opt/perl-5.14.2>, then symlink C</opt/perl> to that directory. This
makes it easy to switch to a newer version of Perl later by installing
and just moving the symlink.
If you install a stand-alone Perl, update your shell to put the path
of the new C<perl> executable before the system Perl. You may want
to set this in your shell profile for the user account you use to manage
RT so you don't accidentally run commands or install modules in the
wrong Perl installation.
The following sections describe several approaches to installing a
stand-alone Perl.
=head2 Install from Source
You can download Perl directly from L<http://www.perl.org> and follow
the installation instructions. Typically this involves running C<Configure>,
then C<make && make test && sudo make install>. For most installations,
this C<Configure> command should be sufficient:
./Configure -d -Dprefix=/opt/perl
You can set the prefix to wherever you want Perl installed. Read the
documentation provided with the distribution for more options.
=head2 Perlbrew
L<Perlbrew|http://perlbrew.pl> is a tool that makes it easy to manage multiple
Perl installations. Once installed, the C<perlbrew> command provides options to
build various versions of Perl, switch between version, update installed
versions, and more.
By default, C<perlbrew> installs all of its Perls in your C<$HOME> directory. If
you want to install in an alternate location, you can set the C<PERLBREW_ROOT>
environment variable:
export PERLBREW_ROOT=/opt/perl5
curl -kL http://install.perlbrew.pl | bash
Since C<perlbrew> has a C<switch> command to use different installed Perl
versions, you don't need to manually manage symlinks as described above.
=head2 mod_perl
If you plan to run RT with L<mod_perl|http://perl.apache.org> on a 64-bit system, you
may need to run Configure with these options:
./Configure -d -Dprefix=/opt/perl -A ccflags=-fPIC
Then make sure you use your stand-alone perl when building and installing
mod_perl. You find more details on these flags in the
L<mod_perl installation documentation|http://perl.apache.org/docs/2.0/user/install/install.html#Prerequisites>.
=head1 CPAN Modules
RT requires modules from the
L<Comprehensive Perl Archive Network|http://www.cpan.org> to run.
Below are a few of the tools available to help download and install
these modules from CPAN. These tools can work with RT's L<rt-test-dependencies>
tool and the C<make testdeps> and C<make fixdeps> part of the installation
process to get these modules installed.
=head2 CPAN Shell
The traditional tool for managing Perl modules is the CPAN shell,
accessed with the C<cpan> command installed as part of Perl. To set up
C<cpan> on an initial install, run the C<cpan> command and follow the
prompts to set the initial configuration. You can set each option or allow
it to automatically set some sensible defaults.
The main options you'll need to set are the list of download servers and
options for C<make install>. For download servers, you'll typically want to
select some mirrors geographically close to you. If you typically run installs
using C<sudo>, set C<make_install_make_command> to C<'sudo make'> and
C<mbuild_install_build_command> to C<'sudo ./Build'>. Then install
the CPAN bundle:
cpan>install Bundle::CPAN
This installs some additional modules to add features to C<cpan>.
Once you finish this initialization, RT's C<make fixdeps> should be able
to handle the rest. Any time you need to install a new module or upgrade
a module, you can just type C<cpan> and manage it from the cpan shell.
=head2 cpanminus
C<cpanminus>, or C<cpanm>, is a utility built to make it as easy as possible
to install modules from CPAN. You can install the L<App::cpanminus> module
itself from CPAN, or have it install itself:
curl -L http://cpanmin.us | perl - --sudo App::cpanminus
Once installed, set the C<RT_FIX_DEPS_CMD> environment variable to
have RT use C<cpanm> to install modules:
export RT_FIX_DEPS_CMD=/opt/perl/bin/cpanm
Then run C<make fixdeps> and let RT install all of its dependencies.
=cut
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