[OS X TeX] /private/var/root/Library/texmf

[Gerben Wierda]

On Feb 14, 2006, at 02:03, Peter Dyballa wrote:

>
> Am 14.02.2006 um 01:25 schrieb Herbert Schulz:
>
>> That's what I was afraid of... a slip! I think I'll alias updmap to 
>> updmap-sys just to be safe.
>
> But only for the root user! (joking)
>
> Well, if updmap is invoked instead of updmap-sys, nothing bad happens. 
> Only when root would tex a document it would be set due to root's 
> private environment.
>
> I don't know exactly know how i-Installer works, but I could find that 
> I made my mistake early in January, in the first days with Tiger. Some 
> weeks later I updated with i-Installer and I am sure it did *not* warn 
> me about root's private installation. I think the way i-Installer 
> gains root privileges is different from the 'sudo -H' command, it's 
> more like a simple 'sudo' which keeps the original user's runtime 
> environment as root's own.

It is quite complicated in the TeX i-Packages (TeX, CM-Super, etc):
- If texconfig-sys is available (2004 and later)
	- If the package is installed with admin privileges (remember you can 
switch this off in Pkg Properties)
		sudo -H -u root <command-sys>
	- Else
		sudo -H -u <you> <command>
- Else (2003)
	- If the package is installed with admin privileges (remember you can 
switch this off in Pkg Properties)
		sudo -H -u root <command>
	- Else
		sudo -H -u <you> <command>
	
The TeX i-Package uses sudo -H -u on any command.

> A clean experiment would be to check whether root has this private 
> set-up. If not, create it with 'sudo -H updmap ...'. Then check your 
> own. If you have, rename ~/Library/texmf/web2c to something different, 
> web3c for example. Now your own environment is clean, but root's not. 
> Trying to re-configure only in i-Installer should trigger the warning 
> about a private set-up. If not, it's quite clear that i-Installer runs 
> only in sudo instead of 'sudo -H' mode ...
>
> I am quite sure that i-Installer runs only in the simple sudo mode -- 
> because otherwise it might have problems to work in the *proper* 
> environment. This proper environment is created from a PLIST (property 
> list) file in the (normal) user's ~/Library/Preferences directory. 
> Migrating the process environment completely to root would create a 
> completely new runtime environment. And this one could be faulty ... 
> i-Installer wouldn't know where the i-Packages are saved on disk for 
> example, or what the search path is.

I don't understand this scenario (and I wrote the stupid program ;-)

It is easy to equate installing TeX with i-Installer, but i-Installer 
is a *generic* installer and this stuff about configuring TeX is part 
of the TeX i-Package and i-Installer (the program) cannot have 
knowledge of it. But maybe that is not the misunderstanding.

Anyway, a setup in root's private directory should be detected if root 
has a login shell. If it does not, there is no harm in its existence.

G

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