From smoogen lanl.gov Sun Sep 21 19:07:25 2003
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2003 22:08:40 -0600 (MDT)
From: Stephen Smoogen <smoogen lanl.gov>
Reply-To: rpm-list redhat.com
To: rpm-list redhat.com
Cc: bernholdtde ornl.gov
Subject: rh-rpm] Re: Are "user space" RPMs possible?


If I am understanding your questions correctly.. it is answerable in a couple of parts:

1) Users building their own RPMS can do so by having a .rpmmacros file. Here is mine

[smoogen smoogen1 smoogen]$ less .rpmmacros # # A standardized .rpmmacros file to allow for development in directories # other than /usr/src/redhat/. Only override specific directories, # distribution and packager. Keep compiler and such to default. # %_topdir /home/smoogen/LANL_RPM_DVL/ %vendor SmoogeSpace %distribution Smoogen Linux 1.x (RHL 7.1/7.2/7.3) %packager "Stephen J Smoogen (smoogen -at- lanl.gov)" #%define __os_install_post %{nil}
Inside of LANL_RPM_DVL, I created a RPMS/i386, SRPMS, SPECS, SOURCES, and BUILD directories.

2) By making sure that your RPMS are as relocatable as possible you then can have the users install the packages in another area that they control. It would probably be safer for a developer to initialize their own database and then install the packages there for testing.

3) Do not take the easy way out and set rpm setuid (I speak of this from cleaning up too many machines where people did). RPM-intall is not code meant to be run by anyone other than root and has probably never had the security audit that a setuid code should have. Even if the code was perfectly secure it would not be safe. There is nothing in it that would check for a %pre, %post, etc that does a '/bin/rm -rf /' or replacing /etc/passwd or a billion other things.

On Sat, 20 Sep 2003 bernholdtde ornl.gov wrote:

> I'm involved in a project that's looking for a convenient way to


--
Stephen John Smoogen smoogen lanl.gov Los Alamos National Labrador CCN-5 Sched 5/40 PH: 5-8058 Ta-03 SM-261 MailStop P208 DP 17U Los Alamos, NM 87545 -- So shines a good deed in a weary world. = Willy Wonka --
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