Re: [Gnumed-devel] Problem running net install attempting re-bootstrap

[Jim Busser]

On 29-Jul-09, at 3:36 AM, Karsten Hilbert wrote:

They do need root powers to do this but that's

handled inside the script.

They don't install system-wide software. They are creating

a database which is as if they were creating pages in a wiki

while the wiki software is installed system-wide.

When the user is not unaware (or uninformed) that root or sudo will be needed, and unable to provide it, it is both wasted time and may not be clear enough why a user task failed. The same is true if being root (or sudo) causes the inability to run something that a user may not think depends on being a regular user (e.g. for the creation or storage or management of person-related items).

Other scripts do contain comments like 

# It should be run as root and will call the upstream script to

# actually bootstrap the latest database from scratch.

So maybe in bootstrap/net_install-gnumed_server.sh we can instead say

echo "================================================"

echo "This GNUmed helper requires to be logged in as a regular"

echo "user, not as root nor with sudo (though root will be needed).

echo ""

echo "This script will download and install the latest GNUmed"

echo "server onto your ${SYS_TYPE} machine."

echo ""

echo "It will also take care of installing the dependencies"

echo "needed to operate GNUmed smoothly."

echo "================================================"

It seems to me the script's commands

su -c <command>

would not work for a user with sudo (when they did not know root). Such an admin user would simply need to use to download the required files and run (as sudo) one of the other bootstrap scripts ?