abs, fakeroot and strategies for package building

neri · 2003-09-09 17:52:39

Hi everybody,

with the latest update makepkg is capable of building packages as user - if
you set the fakeroot-flag in makepkg.conf and install fakeroot. There has
been a discussion on security issues and it is suggested, I think, to avoid the
usage of makepkg as root.

I tried to build some packages as fakeroot and it worked great.

I know, the implementation is just finished, the documentation still needs to
be done, which takes time. I have three questions regarding the whole
thing.

1. Are there any packages known which can not be build as user?
2. Currently it is suggested to have abs in /usr/abs - I know apeiro will
change that to /var/abs. Most files in /usr _and_ var belong to root. Who
should own abs?
3. Currently, when you run 'abs' the script checks if you are root. If not, it
fails. Now, if you run 'abs' as root, you can not use makepkg with fakeroot
as ordinary user, cause everything in /usr/abs belongs to root and makepkg
cannot write into nthe directories. If you run a chown -R userx /usr/abs
everything is fine.

This questions seem to be silly, but I'm a little bit confused.

bye neri

Xentac · 2003-09-09 20:14:48

I don't think that changing the ownership of the abs tree is a good idea. Just about everything in arch is owned by root, there's not a lot of need to change that.

If you want to build a package as a user you can copy the directory into your home directory and makepkg from there. If you wanted the whole abs tree you can 'cp -r /usr/abs ~'.

I do agree that you should be able to run abs as a different user, especially if you can specify a custom abs directory (abs -p ~/abs or something). That should be an easy fix. The only thing that root is actually needed for in the update is writing to files owned by root.

Toth · 2003-09-09 20:29:34

One idea might be to make the abs tree owned by root.abs. Then any member of the abs group could use ABS in it's current place on the filesystem. Fakeroot would fake root.root permissions anyway so permissions on the package should be fine, right?

Xentac · 2003-09-09 20:37:39

Yeah, permissions on the packages aren't a big deal as long as the user who's running makepkg actually has permission to write those files.

terrapin · 2003-09-09 20:40:02

I was also successful in building a package as fakeroot.

I like Toth's idea of an abs group controlling who has access to abs and the abs tree.

Arch Linux

#1 2003-09-09 17:52:39

abs, fakeroot and strategies for package building

#2 2003-09-09 20:14:48

Re: abs, fakeroot and strategies for package building

#3 2003-09-09 20:29:34

Re: abs, fakeroot and strategies for package building

#4 2003-09-09 20:37:39

Re: abs, fakeroot and strategies for package building

#5 2003-09-09 20:40:02

Re: abs, fakeroot and strategies for package building

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