On Sat, Apr 24, 2004 at 06:38:11PM -0400, Jwp wrote: ... > > > Should this be done as Root or a Regular user? ... > > Better rpmbuild as an unprivileged user. See i.e. > > http://freshrpms.net/docs/fight/ ... > > Thanks Alexander, > But it begs the question, why is it that /usr/src/redhat/* are all owned by > root? When building from an SRPM as an unprivileged user I do not have the > needed permissions to write to these locations. > > In the meantime I have made /usr/src/redhat/* world writeable and I am > building as a normal user. In general source code should be managed by the system administrator. Managed it the key word. If it was world writable then anyone could modify it and do something funny to the source. Once the permissions are world writable the the administrator has a difficult task tracking changes. Root can 'give it away' to a trusted user. Better yet, the user can make a copy and improve it for a local need. Then the differences can be inspected and 'taken' by the system administrator. IMO: The key for a personal box are the parts that facilitate tracking changes (the old "Do I, Do you remember?" games). See cp, rcs, rcsdiff, diff, patch, CVS, and other revision control and change communication tools. -- T o m M i t c h e l l /dev/null the ultimate in secure storage.
