Re: FYI: new snapshot and an upcoming release

[Jim Meyering]

Mike Frysinger <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Thursday 20 March 2008, Jim Meyering wrote:
...
>>   http://meyering.net/cu/coreutils-6.10.133-677610.tar.gz
>>   http://meyering.net/cu/coreutils-6.10.133-677610.tar.lzma
>
> i get 4 test failures on x86_64/linux running as root:
> FAIL: no-give-up.log
> FAIL: fail-2eperm.log
> FAIL: special-bits.log
> FAIL: now-owned-by-other.log

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the quick feedback!

You probably know, but just in case, ...
realize that running such tests as root is risky,
especially on a system with potentially hostile users.

I can reproduce precisely those failures, but only if I forget that
when running tests as root there's a special added incantation ;-)
mentioned in README:
[Yes, eventually, someone will make the added bit automatic,
 so there is no need for anything additional. ]

    **********************
    Running tests as root:
    ----------------------

    If you run the tests as root, note that a few of them create files
    and/or run programs as a non-root user, `nobody' by default.
    If you want to use some other non-root username, specify it via
    the NON_ROOT_USERNAME environment variable.  Depending on the
    permissions with which the working directories have been created,
    using `nobody' may fail, because that user won't have the required
    read and write access to the build and test directories.
    I find that it is best to unpack and build as a non-privileged
    user, and then to run the following command as that user in order
    to run the privilege-requiring tests:

      sudo env NON_ROOT_USERNAME=$USER make -k check-root

    If you can run the tests as root, please do so and report any
    problems.  We get much less test coverage in that mode, and it's
    arguably more important that these tools work well when run by
    root than when run by less privileged users.