Voelker, Bernhard wrote: > Jim Meyering wrote: >> Voelker, Bernhard wrote: >> > I'm wondering why there are so many tests (in coreutils-8.0( run by >> > >> > sudo env PATH="$PATH" NON_ROOT_USERNAME=$USER make -k check-root >> > >> > which are skipped with "must be run as non-root", >> > e.g. touch/read-only, mv/perm-1, etc. >> > Is that on purpose (to check wether the root check works;-) ? >> >> It's because running them as root would fail, >> due to the different way in which permissions work when >> you are root; e.g., root can touch and write to a read-only file: >> >> # :>f; chmod 0 f; touch f; echo > f >> # > > thanks for the answer & sorry for the delay. > > That was clear to me, maybe my question was inprecise: > If I understand the check* targets right, there is the general > purpose target "check" which can be run as a non-root or a root user > while there is a special target for root-only checks named "check-root".
Not quite. I recommend against running "make check" as root. There are very many tests, and while we're pretty confident they contain few bugs and probably no *exploitable* bugs, it is best to be cautious and run as few programs as possible when root. Hence, "make check-root" serves to run the few tests that can succeed only when run by root.
