How to install RPM as a user, root installation not allowed

[Panu Matilainen]

On 04/01/2013 11:19 AM, Panu Matilainen wrote:
> On 04/01/2013 08:48 AM, David Abdurachmanov wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Currently I am using RPM 4.8.0, which quite some patches already.
>> Oneof is ability to install packages as user, not at as root. We are
>> running a system where all your packages must be installed with a
>> special user, which is not root for security reasons.
>>
>> Does RPM 4.11.0.1 already has the options for non-root install, or
>> it  still requires patching to drop root user check?
>
> Generally rpm doesn't much care about the actual user used to run it,
> but come to think of it, there's about one spot where rpm explicitly
> checks for root, which is chmod() and friends which traditionally
> require root.
>
> I suppose your special user is roughly equal to root in terms of
> privileges, just a different uid? That's a different case from what
> people typically refer to as "non-root installation" (meaning
> installation by non-privileged user), and okay I can see how that would
> be problematic - yes the ancient check surrounding chmod() is still there.

Erm... chown(), not chmod().

	- Panu -