In conjection with the release of PEAR 1.4.9 as previously mentioned, Greg Beaver wants to clarify some things when it comes to setting up a PEAR channel in "the official way" and with the correct pakcages.

There has been quite a bit of confusion recently due to the best resource for setting up a channel being located on Toby's blog, and now being quite a few versions out of date. First of all, let it be known that the PEAR_Server package located at pear.chiaraquartet.net has been superseded by the Chiara_PEAR_Server package at pear.chiaraquartet.net.

The rest of the post is concerned with his checklist and step-by-step guide to getting and setting up the needed software. It's the whole process, right down to creating a nice frontend for the users and how to test your channel to ensure it's properly set up.

It's definitely the definitive guide to setting up a PEAR channel correctly.