Jim Meyering wrote: > 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.
ok. > Hence, "make check-root" serves to run the few tests > that can succeed only when run by root. ... so "touch/read-only" and "mv/perm-1" should be removed from "make check-root" since it cannot be run as root, right? Bye, Berny
