macports without root

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Sep 14, 2007, at 16:07, Olivier Croquette wrote:

> I just read this thread from 2006 about running macports without  
> root rights:
> http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macports-dev/2006-October/ 
> 000128.html
>
> The outcome seems to be that MacPorts don't need root, but certain  
> ports may well expect root rights, especially during the "install"  
> phase.
>
> So the following ideas were brought up:
>
> 1. flag the packages requiring root as such
>
> 2. patch the necessary ports as required if possible
>
> I was wondering if something had been some in this direction, and  
> if not, if it is somehow on the roadmap.


I don't think anything has been done about this, though I'm not aware  
what the problems were. Most ports should install into ${prefix},  
whatever you set that to at install time. You can set it to whatever  
you want. You also need to set the Tcl prefix, if you don't want to  
require root. (Otherwise the Tcl prefix is in /Library/Tcl and you  
need root to install there.) Some ports install outside of ${prefix}  
and may be problematic. For example most in the aqua category install  
in /Applications/MacPorts. This could be ok if you ensure the  
ownership of that directory allows non-root users to write into it.  
Some ports in the x11 category need to install in /usr/X11R6 for  
which you definitely need root. I don't think anything can be done  
about that.

If you're having problems with specific ports, tell us about it.