Bug 78216

Summary:	Doc text to encourage non-root use
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Linux	Reporter:	Karl O. Pinc <kop>
Component:	rpm	Assignee:	Jeff Johnson <jbj>
Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX	QA Contact:
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	7.2	Keywords:	FutureFeature
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Enhancement
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2002-11-20 05:49:47 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Karl O. Pinc 2002-11-20 05:49:39 UTC

Description of Problem:

The system comes configured so it's difficult to use rpm
without being root, and the use of root should be discouraged.

Additional Information:
	
Please add the following text to the rpm man page.

----------------------------<snip>---------------------------------
BUILDING AND INSTALLING WHEN NOT THE ROOT USER

By default, building takes place in /usr/src/redhat/, newly (re)built
rpms are written to /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/<arch>/ (or
/usr/src/redhat/SRPMS/), and root permissions are required to write to
these directories.  The following script places a directory named
redhat into the user's home directory and rpm is configured to build
in this new directory:

  (
    if [ -e $HOME/.rpmmacros ] ; then
      echo $HOME/.rpmmacros: already exists 1>&2
      exit 1
    fi
    if [ -e $HOME/redhat ] ; then
      echo $HOME/redhat: already exists 1>&2
      exit 1
    fi
    echo "%_topdir $HOME/redhat" > $HOME/.rpmmacros
    mkdir $HOME/redhat/{,BUILD,SOURCES,SPECS,RPMS,SRPMS}
  )

Note that root permissions will be required to install a (rebuilt)
rpm unless other options, like --relocate and --dbpath, are used.
----------------------------<snip>---------------------------------

I haven't tried using rpm to manage packages installed into my
home directory, but the above works just fine for building when
not root.  It's a start.

Comment 1 Jeff Johnson 2002-12-03 22:06:17 UTC

Yes, the /usr/src/redhat scheme is clunky,
forces root use to build. It's hardly worth
the fight to change.

Your scheme is OK, but there are many other schemes.
I don't see how I can recommend one scheme over another.