Test in local repository without privileges

[Dave Allured - NOAA Affiliate]

Chris, thanks for the quick reply.  You are correct, a private macports
installation would enable testing ports without special privilege.
Actually I have already done this many times for testing and debugging
other cases.

However, I would like to find an intermediate solution that avoids full
build-up from sources.  My main reasons are (1) test sensitivity to
installed ports in the system prefix; (2) save time and effort; and (3) be
able to provide compact, uncomplicated reproducers to third parties.

If not currently possible, it would be nice to have a new feature to enable
local repository testing, with fallback to the system prefix for everything
not found in the local repository.


On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 3:09 PM Christopher Jones <jonesc at hep.phy.cam.ac.uk>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I might be wrong, but I do not believe it is possible to temporarily
> change the install prefix, for a single port.
>
> Most probably you will need to start a new installation, using a custom
> installation prefix, from scratch. see
>
> https://www.macports.org/install.php#source
>
> on installing from source, which you will need to do to change the
> installation prefix, as its a configure time option.
>
> Chris
>
> On 17 Jan 2020, at 9:33 pm, Dave Allured - NOAA Affiliate via
> macports-users <macports-users at lists.macports.org> wrote:
>
> I am on a corporate network with ports installed normally in /opt/local,
> controlled by system admins.  Users do not have any write access into
> system directories.  I would like to use a local portfile repository in
> user space, as described in Macports guide 4.6.
>
> How can I test ports in the local repository?  The "portindex" command
> works as expected in this directory.  However, "port install" fails with
> "Insufficient privileges to write to MacPorts install prefix".  I need a
> way to tell "port install" to use a local prefix, rather than the default
> system prefix, for only the port under test.
>
> I figured that I could avoid tampering with the protected sources.conf, by
> manually pre-staging the desired distfiles in the local repository.  Here
> is my embryonic directory structure:
>
> $HOME/portx/science/netcdf-fortran/Portfile
> $HOME/portx/science/netcdf-fortran/files/patch-Makefile.in.diff
>
> $HOME/portx/var/macports/distfiles/netcdf-fortran/netcdf-fortran-4.5.2.tar.gz
>
> Thank you for any advice.
>
>
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