If you
cd /root/.cpan/build/Net_SSLeay.pm-1.30
make
... What does that tell you? That it has problems finding some vital lib perhaps?

-- Glenn

I get a whole bunch of errors:
Here are the top few lines:
[root@ISISDSPAM Net_SSLeay.pm-1.30]# make
make[1]: Entering directory `/root/.cpan/build/Net_SSLeay.pm-1.30/Net-SSLeay-Handle-0.50'
make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/.cpan/build/Net_SSLeay.pm-1.30/Net-SSLeay-Handle-0.50'
cc -c  -I/usr/include -I/usr/inc32 -I/usr/kerberos/include -fno-strict-aliasing -pipe -I/usr/local/include -  D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -O   -DVERSION=\"1.30\" -DXS_VERSION=\"1.30\" -fpic "-I/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.6/i686-linux/CORE"  -DPERL5 -DOPENSSL_NO_KRB5 SSLeay.c
SSLeay.xs:102:25: openssl/err.h: No such file or directory
SSLeay.xs:103:27: openssl/lhash.h: No such file or directory
SSLeay.xs:104:26: openssl/rand.h: No such file or directory
SSLeay.xs:105:28: openssl/buffer.h: No such file or directory
SSLeay.xs:106:25: openssl/ssl.h: No such file or directory
SSLeay.xs:107:74: openssl/comp.h: No such file or directory
SSLeay.xs:108:93: openssl/md5.h: No such file or directory
SSLeay.xs:109:26: openssl/x509.h: No such file or directory
SSLeay.xs:110:28: openssl/x509v3.h: No such file or directory
SSLeay.xs:1588: parse error before '*' token
SSLeay.xs:1588: parse error before '*' token
SSLeay.xs:1588: warning: data definition has no type or storage class
SSLeay.xs:1589: parse error before '*' token
SSLeay.xs:1589: parse error before '*' token
SSLeay.xs:1589: warning: data definition has no type or storage class

finally ending with:
make: *** [SSLeay.o] Error 1


Jerry

BTW, RH9 is very old by now... Even with legacy updates... One could do well to consider moving on to one of the alternatives:-).

-- Glenn

CPAN tells me SSL is installed - but I did have trouble installing SSL prior to all the SSLeay errors, I thought I resolved the SSL install problem by doing a "force install" of SSL

cpan[1]> install IO::Socket::SSL
CPAN: Storable loaded ok
Going to read /root/.cpan/Metadata
  Database was generated on Sun, 26 Nov 2006 03:25:19 GMT
IO::Socket::SSL is up to date (1.01).

Is this not the SSL to which you are referring?
Thanks,
Jerry

Thanks Glenn!
I installed openssl by checking for the latest version at this site:
http://www.openssl.org

Then ran these commands:
note: the  ./config --openssldir=/usr --shared    option is for upgrading the default OpenSSL libraries on a system like RedHat. Thanks to this website for the tip: http://cpan.org/modules/by-module/Crypt/Crypt-SSLeay-0.51.readme

wget http://www.openssl.org/source/openssl-0.9.8d.tar.gz
tar zxvf  openssl-0.9.8d.tar.gz
cd openssl-0.9.8d
./config --openssldir=/usr --shared
make
make test
make install

After this installation, I was able to return to CPAN and run the SSLeay successfully:
 cpan[1]> install Net::SSLeay

Thanks again Glenn!

Regarding the age of RH9,
We are using the system as an email gateway to an Exchange server.
It's main function is to run Postfix, Amavisd, SpamAssassin, ClamAV (all are up to date).
Is there an upgrade to RH9 that we can install "over the top" to painlessly do an upgrade and preserve the main functions?
Thanks,
Jerry

"Painless" is a very relative term:-). More below... but...
First... Glad that my tip got you going in the right direction.

Now... The problem with staying on a dead release (which RH9 is, more or less, since a few years now) is that one become dependant on nice people like those at Fedora Legacy (www.fedoralegacy.org) , which BTW are dropping all RH linux legacy support as of the end of this year, and the slow evolvement of more and more soutrce installs (without the supporting system of source-based systems like gentoo or slackware). In the end you either have a completely unmaintainable system, a completely insecure system, or ... both.

Moving to new hardware/OS would be the simplest path forward, if not the most cost-effective.ISTR that some Fedora or other had an easy upgrade path from RH9, but... that was a long time ago. I personally went Mandriva at that time (well, Mandrake:-), since that is rather familiar (rpm-based) and a bit more aggressive in packet-choices.

What type of load (messages/day) do you have on that MX? Can it be down for a few hours? If it can, you could: Do a backup (so that you have something to fall back to), install a fresh distro, install/setup (or do partial restore of it) postfix, amavisd (I'm more partial to MailScanner myself), SA and clam... As said, I prefer MailScanner (with Postfix, no less... No, Jules and Wietse are still not friends... But it works marvelously well:-), and with SA and clam installed from Julians package, one can have a gateway up and running in just under an hour... With a little planning:-). Typical downtimes (lacking planning:-) is more like 2-4 hours.
But if you know/like amavisd, that should be about the same...:-).

What you should weigh is the problems that could arise from the current situation... Risk of being hacked, something going bad (assuming HW is as old as the OS hints at:)... and what this would cost you in time, goodwill etc.

If you want to stay with RedHat (well, a clone built from the same SRPMS and RHEL) and have a really solid platform, I'd recommend using CentOS (www.centos.org).

-- Glenn