Best Practices: creating alternate user account to use MacPorts in?

[Nick]

I see this with a user encountering a similar error:
https://lists.macports.org/pipermail/macports-users/2013-November/034019.html

>

The xinit portfile explicitly requests to be installed as root (it contains
the line “install.asroot yes”).

On Wed, Jul 2, 2025 at 11:26 PM Nick <atod101101 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'll try these options, so far during 'port install xorg' the installation
> fails requiring root privileges to complete installation of 'xinit.
>
> On Wed, Jul 2, 2025 at 7:40 PM Dave Allured - NOAA Affiliate via
> macports-users <macports-users at lists.macports.org> wrote:
>
>> Nick, I am glad you figured out before I had to type too much.   ;-)
>>
>> Please refer to:
>> https://guide.macports.org/#installing.macports.source.multiple (section
>> 2.2.4) and observe several rules.  In particular it looks like you are
>> still missing *--with-applications-dir=XXX* and*--without-startupitems*.
>>
>> Also on my controlled Mac where I do not have any admin privileges, I do
>> not use *--with-install-user* or *--with-install-group*.  I simply run
>> configure while logged in as the desired user and group.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 2, 2025 at 5:11 PM Nick <atod101101 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Found the issue, my PATH was pointing to an older macports binary which
>>> used different macports.conf!  No help required now.
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jul 2, 2025 at 6:57 PM Nick <atod101101 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> My proposal here is to create a new user account for macports and
>>>> development work.  Logged into this account 'mp0' I tried:
>>>>
>>>> ./configure --with-no-root-privileges --prefix=${HOME]/mp-install
>>>> --with-install-user=mp0 --with-install-group=mp0
>>>> make
>>>> make install
>>>>
>>>> However, now when I try to install a port I get an error that macports
>>>> has insufficient privileges to write to the install directory.  I can touch
>>>> files in this directory without any error.
>>>>
>>>> Does anyone have suggestions on resolving this?
>>>>
>>>> I created the account using dscl, not sure if there is something that I
>>>> should be aware of doing this.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks!
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Jul 2, 2025 at 5:16 PM Nick <atod101101 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> What are best practices in sandboxing MacPorts to a non-admin user
>>>>> account and still retaining the ability to use XQuartz?
>>>>>
>>>>> For instance, I would like to invoke all applications as a certain
>>>>> user, without administrative privileges, however at the same time still be
>>>>> able to use XQuartz graphically from my privileged account. I was hoping
>>>>> XQuartz could be installed specific to this non-admin user as well.  Unsure
>>>>> if such isolation is possible.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm doing some sandbox testing.  I see a 'macports' user, however in
>>>>> my first installation many of the files in /opt/local are owned by root.  I
>>>>> was hoping to install a specific to a user account for all MacPorts.
>>>>>
>>>>
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