Re: Bug#2091: creating packages requires root privileges

[Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>]

Marek Michalkiewicz writes ("Bug#2091: creating packages requires root privileges"):
> To create a binary *.deb package, root privileges are required.  This
> is because you must create a complete directory structure with proper
> ownerships and permissions first, and then use dpkg-deb to create
> a package from it.

Unfortunately there's not much that can be done about this, because
most packages are created by running the package's own Makefile to
install the files.  This doesn't work (or fails to DTRT) if you're not
root.

I have no plans to improve this situatioon; I think the simplest
solution would be a way to mount a part of a filesystem in a way that
means "user <uid> is root for here".  You'd want to mount it with
nosuid,nodev of course.  Then the filesystem could be used to record
the chmod's &c done by the package build Makefiles and get them into
the .deb file.

If someone else wants to write a program that makes .deb files some
other way then they should feel free.  They'll probably want to make
the `new format' archives the default - see the dpkg-deb source for
details.

I'm closing this bug report.

Ian.