How to resolve “Missing perl module” during the packages update

Symptoms

The update process failed with the following output:

---> Package python2-hwdata.noarch 0:2.3.5-1.el6 will be obsoleting 
--> Running transaction check 
---> Package ea-openssl.x86_64 1:1.0.2k-6.el6.cloudlinux will be installed 
--> Processing Dependency: perl(WWW::Curl::Easy) for package: 1:ea-openssl-1.0.2k-6.el6.cloudlinux.x86_64 
--> Finished Dependency Resolution 
Error: Package: 1:ea-openssl-1.0.2k-6.el6.cloudlinux.x86_64 (cl-ea4) 
Requires: perl(WWW::Curl::Easy) 
You could try using --skip-broken to work around the problem 
You could try running: rpm -Va --nofiles --nodigest

This is caused by perl* packages being excluded in /etc/yum.conf. exclude line prevents yum from taking actions on packages listed in that line, including updating it.

We've seen perl in excludes on cPanel servers that were in production for a very long time. cPanel had this exclude added in its earlier versions.

Solution

To update just required package (ea-openssl in our case), perl must be removed from the excludes. The correct way to update the package is: # yum update ea-openssl --disableexcludes=main

After this, you can run # yum update to update the rest of the packages.