Certain aspects of the Discus program make use of optional Perl modules, but being able to use these modules adds functionality or simplicity. The following are instructions for how you can install Perl modules without the cooperation of your web host, and have Discus recognize them.

The following procedure is intended for those who are familiar with Discus and the configuration and installation of Perl modules. DiscusWare, LLC provides ABSOLUTELY NO SUPPORT for the installation of Perl modules.

This procedure works with SOME but NOT ALL perl modules.

1. Upgrade to version 3.10.5 or 4.x. If you upgrade your board to one of these versions, or you are already running one of those versions, you can skip this step.

2. Create directory on your server: Using your FTP program, create a subdirectory named perlpkgs within the administration directory of your Discus board. The administration directory is the same one that contains your discus.conf file. The capitalization is important, so make sure that you type "perlpkgs" all in lower case letters. Permissions on the newly created directory need to be set to 0755 (rwxr-xr-x). You need to do this only once, no matter how many modules you are installing.

3. Download the module from CPAN: Download the Perl module you wish to install from http://www.cpan.org, or from the DiscusWare web site (if the module is distributed from here).

4. Extract the downloaded file: The file you download should be in the tar.gz format. Using a program such as WinZip, extract the file to any directory on your computer (you will need to find this later).

5. Create specific subdirectory on your server: Within the "perlpkgs" subdirectory, you need to create the directory corresponding to the first part of the name of the module. Most Perl modules contain a double colon (::) in the name; you need to create a directory named the same as the word before the double colon. For example, for the Net::SMTP module, you need to create a directory called "Net". And for Mail::POP3Client, the directory you create is called "Mail". Capitalization is important here. Conveniently, however, if you are browsing by module at CPAN, the directory name you create is generally identical to the directory name that you had to click before downloading the module.

6. Upload *.pm file: Within the subdirectory you created in the previous step, you need to upload the appropriate *.pm file from the downloaded distribution. The *.pm file you need to upload generally is named according to the word after the double colon in the name of the module. For Net::SMTP, the file is named SMTP.pm, and for Mail::POP3Client, the file is named POP3Client.pm. It is important to upload this file in ASCII mode. Set permissions to 0755 (rwxr-xr-x). Note that you can ignore the other files from the distribution.

7. Repeat for other modules: If you have other modules to install, repeat steps 3 through 6 as needed.

Note that it is generally considered easier and better to install Modules using the recommended method (where the system administrator installs the module into the actual Perl directory tree).

Note also that the installation of this module will work only for the Discus board you install it on. It will not work on any other Discus boards that you might have on that server, or in any of your other Perl scripts (unless you modify @INC properly in those scripts; we leave that to you).