RE: autoconf execution needs root permission

[Marslo Jiao]

Hi Eric,

Thanks for your clarify. It's really helpful.
Anything update I will let you know.

BRs,  Marslo Jiao  

-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Blake [mailto:address@hidden 
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2015 09:10 PM
To: Marslo Jiao; address@hidden
Subject: Re: autoconf execution needs root permission

On 05/12/2015 12:46 AM, Marslo Jiao wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've heard of my colleague said that, if we use autoconf, then it must need 
> root permission.
> Is that right?

No, you are mistaken. Autoconf is designed to be usable without requiring any 
special permissions.  I'd be interested in more details as to why you think 
root access is required, to help squash an incorrect notion with more facts 
than just a blanket statement.

There are some configure scripts in the wild that were written where a 
particular test will get a correct answer only when configure is run as root, 
but such packages are the minority.  But such a configure script can still be 
generated in user space without root privileges, and the test in those 
configure scripts is a result of whoever wrote that configure.ac, and not due 
to autoconf proper.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org