Compiling as root is safe?

pswinslow

pswinslow

I'm a Linux user who just installed FreeBSD on two computers for the first time. I've always compiled software as an unprivileged user, including kernels. I don't see any simple way to do this with Ports. Do the build programs run with reduced privileges or in a jail or something?
 
You can compile as a normal user but the system will prompt for su now and then for tasks that require superuser privileges such as for fetching distfiles. You can set a few make(1) variables and divert the ports system to use your own directories for distfiles and for example saved port options. It won't work completely fine because there are some ports that do require root privileges to build.

There's a better option though and that is ports-mgmt/poudriere that can be configured to do most of the build process as nobody. It's not enabled by default in the configuration though, you have to enable it with this setting in poudriere.conf:

Code: 
BUILD_AS_NON_ROOT=yes

See the handbook for how to set up and use ports-mgmt/poudriere:

https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports-poudriere.html

I also have a HOWTO here at the forums covering the same matter mostly but with some additional information:

Thread 38859
 
Neat. Now I have a build server and local repository for my 32-bit systems which can't compile their own ports. Thanks. :D
 
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