CPAN bootstrap trouble

For long a time I was wondering how some people could get stuck with
CPAN.  However, today on one of the systems I got into a situation
which forces *me* to scratch my head.

==================================================================

powdermilk:/tmp/iz/foo->perl -MCPAN -we shell

Your configuration suggests that CPAN.pm should use a working
directory of
    /home/src/.cpan
Unfortunately we could not create the lock file
    /home/src/.cpan/.lock
due to permission problems.

Please make sure that the configuration variable
    $CPAN::Config->{cpan_home}
points to a directory where you can write a .lock file. You can set
this variable in either
    /local/sol/2.6/depot/perl5.005_03/lib/5.00503/CPAN/Config.pm
or
    /home/u1/vis/ilya/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm

Could not open >/home/src/.cpan/.lock: Permission denied

==================================================================

As you see, due to some problems (well, actually I expect that they
are problems in CPAN.pm), CPAN (essentially) reads config of the root
user.  Now how could I fix it (if I did not know backdoors ;-)?

[Of course, the MyConfig file mentioned above is not present.]

I cannot start an interactive session (as you can see it above).  I
can't correct this by making /home/u1/vis/ilya/.cpan/CPAN/MyConfig.pm
- its format is not documented (even if I know what the message above
is talking about).  I cannot even ask CPAN to start without a lock (at
least via reading the docs).

here are the problems of CPAN.pm this illustrates:

 a) if root uses it early enough, the configuration is contaminated;

 b) if lock can't be acquired, the user should be given a choice
    (e.g., start with a fresh configuration for a different directory?).

 c) If MyConfig.pm is not found, the message better explain how to get it
    (e.g., copy the systemwise one?).

Thanks,
Ilya

P.S.  This is CPAN v1.76.

• CPAN bootstrap trouble by Ilya Zakharevich
• Re: CPAN bootstrap trouble by Andreas J Koenig
• Re: CPAN bootstrap trouble by Ilya Zakharevich
• Re: CPAN bootstrap trouble by Ilya Zakharevich
• Re: CPAN bootstrap trouble by Andreas J Koenig