[37344] branches/gsoc08-privileges/base/src/port1.0

[Randall Wood]

On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 5:00 PM, Paul Magrath <pmagrath at macports.org> wrote:
> On 23 Jun 2008, at 21:29, Rainer Müller wrote:
>>
>> Please use an appropriate way to find the home directory of the user
>> here, not an hardcoded /Users.
>>
>> There must be a better way to find the current user than an external
>> whoami. If you really need whoami, run it only once at a central
>> place.
>
> It is hardcoded in currently mainly for testing and development
> purposes.
> I'll be looking into finding a more reliable way of finding the home
> directory of the user and I will definitely not be finding it more
> than once. I'll use a global variable to store it once found.
>
>> What happens if I run as root and this directory is not writeable?
>> There
>> is no /Users/root (it would be /root) and an additional fallback is
>> needed.
>
> The idea would be that if run as root that privileges will be dropped
> (see today's commit). I will be coming back to dealing with the
> situation of a user running macports under su or having logged in as
> root.
>
>> And what if ~/.macports is not writeable?
>
> Not sure why that would ever happen under normal circumstances tbh.
> I'll add some code giving an explicit error message to the user though
> to add to the Tcl permissions exception that would be generate

This WILL happen if the user is a service account without a home
directory, or with a read-only home directory.

>> The path ~/.macports should only be listed at one central place so
>> it is
>> easier to change it later or customize it.
>
> I'll use a global variable for this too.
>
>> Also, I don't think there should be a warning to the user, just a
>> message.
>
> Really? If any thing I was going to push that down to debug.
>
>> Why are you checking workpath for "~/.macports"?
>
> There turned out to be no reason too. This was removed in my commit
> earlier today.
>
>> There are ports consisting of more than just one Portfile (e.g. vim),
>> you need to copy files, too.
>
> Will do. I'll have a look at the Vim port and see what needs to be done.
>
>> You still lock at the old place? I think this needs further
>> investigation.
>
> Em, no. I've changed the workpath so the statefile is now in the new
> place.
>
>> Sorry for coming back to this commit so late.
>
> No problem. Thanks for taking the time! I'll probably come back to you
> again about one or two of these as well as the other stuff we've
> discussed.
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Paul.
>
>
>
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-- 
Randall Wood
randall.h.wood at alexandriasoftware.com

"The rules are simple: The ball is round. The game lasts 90 minutes.
All the rest is just philosophy."