Re: [Sheflug] user rights and directories

[James Bruce <nospam [at] sheffield.ac.uk>]

thanks... i think that explains it all! :)

cheers


On Saturday 07 July 2001 06:24, you wrote:
> >>>>> "James" == James Bruce <aca00jab [at] sheffield.ac.uk> writes:
>
>     James> so can someone *please* help?
>
> First things first:
>
>     James> surely as a user i want to be able to install things,
>
> Not to system directories, sorry, nope, *nix is a _multi-user_
> system.  All of the Unix administration utilities are based on the
> model that the system administrator (which may very well be the only
> user of the system, just wearing a different hat) does that.
>
>     James> and usr/local/ cant be sensitive stuff or anything...
>
> Everything that one user can install for another is potentially
> sensitive.  Remember, the people who design those installer utilities
> have to think about systems where most users are different people, and
> have earned more or less trust.
>
> Yes, I know that you're the only user on your system.  Same thing is
> true of me on most of the systems I administer, but I've learned to be
> pretty happy with the discipline imposed by the Unix way of doing
> things.  (Yes, I have executed the equivalent of rm -rf / from a
> non-root account, among many other smaller benefits.)
>
> And there will come a day when you want to give limited access to your
> system to somebody else.
>
>     James> how can i install things from my user account?! without
>     James> using 'su' as it seems to never find the program i want to
>     James> install after ive switched,,,
>
> Have you RTFMed?  Most applications allow you to change the
> installation location using something like prefix=/usr/local (that
> gives the default, of course).  If you want wolf to have them
> installed, use something like prefix=/home/wolf/apps.  Then add
> /home/wolf/apps/bin to wolf's $PATH.
>
>     James> then i type in the same command... install.py, whilst in
>     James> the same directory... and it gives me an error like cant be
>     James> found or somehting....
>
> Try `echo $PATH'.  I doubt you have the current directory in root's
> path.  And you shouldn't, so don't add it.
>
> `./install.py' as root should win.
>
>     James> then i try "sh install.py" and gives a load more errors.
>
> It's a python script.  If you want to explicitly execute a python
> script, use `python install.py'.
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