On Jan 12, 2018, at 07:40, db wrote: > On 18 Nov 2017, at 20:38, Ryan Schmidt wrote: >> It is preferable to install MacPorts with root (administrator) privileges >> and to run it with sudo. This is more secure, because, with those >> privileges, MacPorts can drop privileges and use the unprivileged "macports" >> user while building. In contrast, if you install MacPorts as your user, >> MacPorts builds as your user, which gives every port's build system the >> undesired ability to inadvertently affect any files that your user can >> affect. For example, if running MacPorts as your user, a badly-written build >> system could theoretically delete everything in your home directory; if >> running MacPorts with sudo, that can't happen because the "macports" user >> doesn't have the ability to modify your home directory. > > > When installing macports as non-root couldn't it also switch from non-root > user to user 'macports'?
Normal users don't have permission to switch to other users. Only root has permission to do that. > As an aside, I installed macports as non-root and built coreutils and noticed > that it does as root. What do you mean? What specifically did you notice? > Is there any way to prevent a port from building as root on a non-root > installation? If a portfile says that a port requires root to build, then it requires root to build, and you cannot build it if you have a non-root installation. But the coreutils portfile doesn't say that.
