Installing Perl and GCC on NFS

Question

We have 15 Solaris-10 (Dinosaurs, I know) zones, all of which have a few NFS-mounted file systems. In fact, I have been installing my Perl scripts there so that I need only edit once and it is updated for all 15 zones. We have an opportunity to install Perl-5.20 in a separate directory tree from the Perl-5.8 environment the users are [in their view] locked into. Similarly, they see themselves as locked into gcc 3.3.2, terrified to budge. We have an opportunity to install the latest gcc (including g++, of course) in a similarly alternative directory tree. I guess the idea would be to install the new gcc, then use that to configure and compile Perl.

The problem: Configuring the new Perl and gcc installations in a different directory tree from the default is kinda error-prone. (There are likely another non-default options as well.) To do the same non-standard installations 15 times is SO inviting a screw-up!

My solution (maybe): Install the newer Perl & gcc in a directory on an NFS-mounted file system, like my utilities. Those in the know (the DBAs mainly) would put that directory earlier in $PATH than /usr/local/bin. Those not in the know - said terrified users - would remain blissfully unaware of the much better tools under their noses and never the twain shall meet to be blamed for messing up the environment of the other.

Is this a realistic solution? Are there library dependencies within Perl and gcc that would rule out an NFS installation? Has anyone done this before? (Actually, I think they did this at one place I worked but the always messed the code in the process.)

Thanks much for help here.

-- JS

Answer 1

I recently built gcc 4.9 from source and used it to build Perl 5.18.2 on Solaris 10 on an NFS share without any problems. Our stack of cpan modules installed without issue, including DBD::Oracle.