could not set attributes of share/man/man1/foo.1.gz : permission denied (--with-no-root-privileges)

[jonthn+macports@…]

Today I installed Snow Leopard and fetch the source file of MacPorts 1.8.0.

In that case I created a fresh new user called "build" with no Admin rights. Configured MacPorts like this :

 ./configure --prefix=$HOME/package --with-universal_archs="x86_64 i386" --with-no-root-privileges

And when I try to install expat I got this error :

--->  Installing expat @2.0.1_0+universal
DEBUG: Executing org.macports.install (expat)
DEBUG: installing file: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/bin/xmlwf
DEBUG: installing file: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/include/expat.h
DEBUG: installing file: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/include/expat_external.h
DEBUG: installing link: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/lib/libexpat.0.dylib
DEBUG: installing file: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/lib/libexpat.1.5.2.dylib
DEBUG: installing link: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/lib/libexpat.1.dylib
DEBUG: installing file: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/lib/libexpat.a
DEBUG: installing link: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/lib/libexpat.dylib
DEBUG: installing file: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/lib/libexpat.la
DEBUG: installing file: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/share/doc/expat-2.0.1/COPYING
DEBUG: installing file: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/share/doc/expat-2.0.1/Changes
DEBUG: installing file: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/share/doc/expat-2.0.1/README
DEBUG: installing file: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/share/doc/expat-2.0.1/html/expat.png
DEBUG: installing file: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/share/doc/expat-2.0.1/html/reference.html
DEBUG: installing file: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/share/doc/expat-2.0.1/html/style.css
DEBUG: installing file: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/share/doc/expat-2.0.1/html/valid-xhtml10.png
DEBUG: installing file: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/share/doc/expat-2.0.1/html/xmlwf.1
DEBUG: installing file: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/share/doc/expat-2.0.1/html/xmlwf.sgml
DEBUG: installing file: /Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/share/man/man1/xmlwf.1.gz
Error: Target org.macports.install returned: could not set attributes of "/Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/share/man/man1/xmlwf.1.gz": permission denied
DEBUG: Backtrace: could not set attributes of "/Users/build/package/var/macports/software/expat/2.0.1_0+universal/Users/build/package/share/man/man1/xmlwf.1.gz": permission denied
    while executing
"file attributes $dst_element -group staff -owner build -permissions 00444 -readonly 0 -creator {} -type {} -hidden 0 -rsrclength 0"
    ("eval" body line 1)
    invoked from within
"eval file attributes {$dst_element} [file attributes $src_element]"
    (procedure "install_element" line 11)
    invoked from within
"install_element $src_element $dst_element"
    (procedure "directory_dig" line 32)
    invoked from within
"directory_dig $rootdir $name $regref [file join $cwd $name]"
    (procedure "directory_dig" line 39)
    invoked from within
"directory_dig $rootdir $name $regref [file join $cwd $name]"
    (procedure "directory_dig" line 39)
    invoked from within
"directory_dig $rootdir $name $regref [file join $cwd $name]"
    (procedure "directory_dig" line 39)
    invoked from within
"directory_dig $rootdir $name $regref [file join $cwd $name]"
    (procedure "directory_dig" line 39)
    invoked from within
"directory_dig $rootdir $name $regref [file join $cwd $name]"
    (procedure "directory_dig" line 39)
    invoked from within
"directory_dig $rootdir $name $regref [file join $cwd $name]"
    (procedure "directory_dig" line 39)
    invoked from within
"directory_dig ${destroot} ${destroot} ${regref}"
    (procedure "portinstall::install_main" line 8)
    invoked from within
"$procedure $targetname"
Warning: the following items did not execute (for expat): org.macports.activate org.macports.install

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

I see it too, but it's not an expat issue; it occurs with zlib too, and I assume most any other port that installs a manpage that MacPorts will compress.

--->  Installing zlib @1.2.3_2
Error: Target org.macports.install returned: could not set attributes of "/mp/var/macports/software/zlib/1.2.3_2/mp/share/man/man3/zlib.3.gz": permission denied

[jonthn+macports@…]

Patch that permits to install expat

[jonthn+macports@…]

I've added a patch (that should have be named portinstall.tcl-file-attributes-no-root.diff) that solves this problem (or at least seems so).

What I've done is transformed the one-liner for setting up attributes to one-line for each attribute. It's most probably an ugly patch but perhaps it'll help you make something better.

[raphael@…]

Cc Me!

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Through ​mailing list discussion and more testing it seems this issue is unique to Snow Leopard. It does not occur in my testing on Tiger or Leopard, though a different issue does: #20896.

Regarding the patch Jonathan submitted above, I would very much like to first know what revision caused the problem, since this all used to work in MacPorts 1.7.1. Then, once we see what change caused the issue, we can think about how best to solve it. The script I attached to ​this message could help test for the issue.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Bryan committed r58093 (trunk) and r58094 (1.8 branch) to fix this. Now only owner, group and permissions are preserved; other attributes are discarded.