Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 528577
febootstrap-2.4 cannot complete chroot construction when running as root
Last modified: 2010-06-28 11:00:45 EDT
Description of problem: febootstrap-2.4 fails to finish successfully when run as root when it calls febootstrap-run to clean up the chroot's yum cache because febootstrap-run tries to use fakechroot even when it is running as uid 0 and should be using chroot. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): febootstrap-2.4-1 How reproducible: Always. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Run sudo febootstrap fedora-11 ./f11 Actual results: febootstrap downloads and install packages, then crashes when it tries to empty the chroot's /var/cache/yum. Expected results: febootstrap should exit with return code 0 after installing packages. Additional info: This behavior is a regression from febootstrap-2.1, which was able to successfully construct fedora chroots as root.
I really don't think it's a good idea to run febootstrap as root. Is it necessary to do this or can you run febootstrap as non-root? I'd actually rather remove the ability to run as root TBH ...
Patch in bug 525778 or bug 528687 should fix this, as "crash" in febootstrap-2.4 I see is an error "febootstrap-run: ...: not a root filesystem".
(In reply to comment #1) > I really don't think it's a good idea to run febootstrap > as root. Is it necessary to do this or can you run > febootstrap as non-root? The ability to generate honest Fedora chroots as root is important to me because I write software (i.e. Rainbow, which I want to test in Fedora chroots) which relies completely on the actual complete behavior of the Unix discretionary access control, POSIX ACLs, capabilities, glibc NSS, and network namespaces subsystems -- i.e. on the proper functioning of the kernel's access control APIs -- which in turn require that I call them with appropriate privileges. I would be pleasantly surprised to learn that fakeroot provided adequate simulation of all of these APIs. > I'd actually rather remove the ability to run as root TBH ... I find it extremely valuable that febootstrap and debootstrap are "equivalent up to choose of distro". Febootstrap is much easier for me to use than mock for this reason. Do you want to remove it because you think it's unsafe, because it's hard to maintain, or for some other reason? (Or for some combination of reasons?)
I mean, I'm not going to stop you if you find it useful. The real problem is that %post scripts might do *anything*, in particular interacting with system daemons or installing SELinux policy. These sorts of things aren't prevented by chroot (but they are if you don't run them as root at all!)
That is indeed a risk that I take in testing software these days and, as you say, it is a fine reason to prefer unprivileged installation whenever possible. Tough luck for me, I think. :) (However, if you find that you want to make it slightly harder for people to shoot themselves in the foot unawares, then maybe a "-f-yes-I-really-mean-it" flag would be appropriate for uid-0 installation?)
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