The famous "./configure; make" - my custom version [LWN.net]

The famous "./configure; make" - my custom version

Posted Mar 27, 2008 21:04 UTC (Thu) by felixrabe (guest, #50514)
In reply to: The famous "./configure; make" - my custom version by pr1268
Parent article: Striking gold in binutils

Well, you probably don't run grep 'rm -rf' configure every time before you compile something, right? ...

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The famous "./configure; make" - my custom version

Posted Mar 28, 2008 0:02 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link]

Well, you probably don't run grep 'rm -rf' configure every time before you compile something, right? ...

I can't say I've ever done that. Nor have I experienced anything remotely similar to zlynx's scenarios.

Although I do understand the risks of overusing the root account, I only build sources I consider trustworthy (usually tarball projects downloaded from SourceForge or KDE), but even these reputable source repositories may let some malicious code slip by...

I also admit I'm "going against the grain" in the context of accepted make/build practices; I'll try to figure out how to adjust permissions and/or ownership such that I can do ./configure and make as an unprivileged user...

The famous "./configure; make" - my custom version

Posted Mar 28, 2008 22:22 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

chown your build tree to the unprivileged user, build as normal, `make 
install' as root or (if you're paranoid) use `fakeroot' or some similar 
package to install and then deal with the resulting miniature root tree 
using GNU stow or something similar.

(Rarely (very rarely) one encounters packages that write stuff to the 
build tree during the `make install' process, so you might need to be root 
to *remove* it if you chose to do the final installation as root.)