Re: [gentoo-user] Question about initial/default ownership of /usr/portage

[Neil Bothwick]

On Sat, 3 Oct 2015 10:40:42 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:

> On 03/10/2015 10:26, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> > On Fri, 2 Oct 2015 20:48:06 -0700, Raymond Jennings wrote:
> >
> >> Who is supposed to own /usr/portage?
> >
> > This was discussed in some detail two weeks ago. Search for the thread
> > entitled "portage directory ownerships?".
> >
> >
>
>
> There's an aspect of that we didn't discuss 2 weeks ago.
>
> The answer to the OP's question is, as always, "it depends".
> From man 5 make.conf, section "FEATURES":
>
>               userfetch
>                      When  portage  is  run  as root, drop privileges to
>                      portage:portage  during  the  fetching  of  package
>                      sources.
>
>               userpriv
>                      Allow  portage  to drop root privileges and compile
>                      packages  as  portage:portage  without  a   sandbox
>                      (unless usersandbox is also used).
>
>               usersandbox
>                      Enable  the sandbox in the compile phase, when run‐
>                      ning without root privs (userpriv).
>
>               usersync
>                      Drop privileges to the owner of  ${repository_loca‐
>                      tion}  for  emerge(1)  --sync operations. Note that
>                      this feature assumes  that  all  subdirectories  of
>                      ${repository_location}  have  the same ownership as
>                      ${repository_location} itself.  It  is  the  user's
>                      responsibility  to  ensure correct ownership, since
>                      otherwise Portage would have to waste time validat‐
>                      ing ownership for each and every sync operation.
>
>
> So logically, if user* is in FEATURES then $PORTDIR should be
> portage:portage
> If emerge --sync is done as user alan, then all repos ($PORTDIR, local
> overlays, layman overlays) need to be owned by alan:
>
> if user* is not in FEATURES and everything gets run as root, then
> PORTDIR, DISTDIR and so on can be root:root.

That's interesting, but I think only the last one applies to $POSTDIR.
userfetch applies to $DISTDIR, which may or may not be within $PORTDIR
while the others relate to compiling so should only affect transient
directories in $PORTAGE_TMPDIR.

> The point is, there really isn't a "owner:group /should/ be" rule for
> portage data, the admin needs to make it whatever he needs it to be.

The default though is for all four of those features to be set, so
you would expect $PORTDIR to be portage:portage, yet on this recent
install it is root:root. The local portage mirror it syncs from is
portage:portage.

I'm beginning to think portage is female and all attempts to understand it
are futile...


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him
to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks.