A couple of the cpan module have dependencies on libraries being installed # Net::SSLeay This is a sub-dependency of LWP::Protocol::https and requires 'libssl-dev' to install. On a debian/ubuntu machine this can be resolved by running: sudo apt-get install libssl-dev # XML::Parser This is a sub-dependency of WebService::Simple and required 'libexpat-dev' to install. sudo apt-get install install libexpat-dev