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Wouldn't this be mostly solved by a paragraph in the Homebrew documentation that recommend creating a specific user which do installations? Edit: It seems to b

by berntb 10y ago

Wouldn't this be mostly solved by a paragraph in the Homebrew documentation that recommend creating a specific user which do installations? Edit: It seems to be fixed anyway? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12892929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12892929 (That aside, this praise was good to read. Homebrew didn't work well enough for me a few years back, so I got a Linux computer. I'll reconsider Macs next year when it is ~ time to get a new laptop.) Edit: Let user "homebrew" have id 0. I tried MacPorts too. Hopefully either works for me next time.

stephenr 10y ago
No. Root is the specific user which should do installations. Thus, the "solution" is for Homebrew to stop pretending that password-less binary installs is a "feature" instead of a massive security hole. Honestly, Homebrew doesn't seem like a reason to either use or not use a Mac. For me personally, (as I mentioned elsewhere), the small amount of unix-y host (i.e. macOS) software I install is available in native Installer packages. The rest I install in Debian VMs. For those that need/want more unix-y tools at the host level, there are a lot of positive comments about MacPorts in this thread, and it specifically doesn't have the permissions issue that Homebrew has (it requires being run as sudo, as it drops to a special account for compiling, and then later installs as root) Reply-to-Edits: > Edit: It seems to be fixed anyway? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12892929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12892929 No. You still need to change ownership of /usr/local/bin. The problem isn't fixed, at all. > Edit: Let user "homebrew" have id 0. No. That would essentially be the same as running `sudo homebrew`, which they don't support. It would also mean that packages that need to be compiled will do so as root, not a limited user account as they should be.
- berntb 10y ago
  OK, thanks. It was a few years since I touched the Mac package managers. (I ought to ask or go read up on why it is like this, but I'll let it wait a year to when I research the next machine anyway.) (Edit: Weird to not allow root? Oh, next year. :-) )
- theCodeStig 10y ago
  You seem to have strong views about the matter. Homebrew is open source after all; why not submit a pull request with the changes that you propose?
  - stephenr 10y ago
    > why not submit a pull request with the changes that you propose I wasn't aware you could submit a pull-request to change the mentality of project leaders.
    - fit2rule 10y ago
      No better way to do it. Working code or stfu.

by berntb 10y ago

stephenr 10y ago

No. Root is the specific user which should do installations. Thus, the "solution" is for Homebrew to stop pretending that password-less binary installs is a "feature" instead of a massive security hole. Honestly, Homebrew doesn't seem like a reason to either use or not use a Mac. For me personally, (as I mentioned elsewhere), the small amount of unix-y host (i.e. macOS) software I install is available in native Installer packages. The rest I install in Debian VMs. For those that need/want more unix-y tools at the host level, there are a lot of positive comments about MacPorts in this thread, and it specifically doesn't have the permissions issue that Homebrew has (it requires being run as sudo, as it drops to a special account for compiling, and then later installs as root) Reply-to-Edits: > Edit: It seems to be fixed anyway? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12892929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12892929 No. You still need to change ownership of /usr/local/bin. The problem isn't fixed, at all. > Edit: Let user "homebrew" have id 0. No. That would essentially be the same as running `sudo homebrew`, which they don't support. It would also mean that packages that need to be compiled will do so as root, not a limited user account as they should be.

berntb 10y ago
OK, thanks. It was a few years since I touched the Mac package managers. (I ought to ask or go read up on why it is like this, but I'll let it wait a year to when I research the next machine anyway.) (Edit: Weird to not allow root? Oh, next year. :-) )
theCodeStig 10y ago
You seem to have strong views about the matter. Homebrew is open source after all; why not submit a pull request with the changes that you propose?
- stephenr 10y ago
  > why not submit a pull request with the changes that you propose I wasn't aware you could submit a pull-request to change the mentality of project leaders.
  - fit2rule 10y ago
    No better way to do it. Working code or stfu.