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Bug#996540: Post install fails when run as non-root user and does not respect PKG_ROOT



Quoting Glenn Washburn (2022-01-17 08:42:24)
> I'll restate my use case briefly here. The use case is installing packages as
> an unprivileged user to a user writable location (I don't have privileges on
> this machine and can't chroot). This can be done by invoking the dpkg binary
> with the "--force-script-chrootless" option and works, but the post install
> fails.

And just as I told you in that other bug, you can achieve that same thing
without being root by using either fakechroot or by unsharing the user
namespace. But you definitely have privileges for the former.

We don't need to put support allowing maintainer scripts to be run as another
user as the root user if there are mechanisms that can fake the root user. For
good reasons package maintainers are cautious when it's about increasing the
complexity of their maintainer scripts and it should only be done when it's
absolutely necessary.

The final decision of course lies with the texinfo maintainers and not me. I'm
just explaining for you (again) why this is not needed. Just have a look at the
mmdebstrap code and how it fakes being root to create chroot tarballs without
any root privileges. Take that code and use it for your own project and you
will not have to file another of these bugs as all packages will just magically
work without any changes. If you need help understanding how mmdebstrap does
what it does I (again) offer you my help.

Thanks!

cheers, josch

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