AthlonRob wrote:
> However, a tarball is just a file. It's created by the GNU tar program.
> Inside the file, it contains the contents of other files and extra
> information such as the file locations and permissions. It's just a
> file, it's entirely possible to create an application that would create
> a tarball containing files owned by somebody else - except storing them
> as being owned by root.

well, i've learned from this thread that gnu tar has that ability built in:
you can set ownership and permissions for the files in the tar ball to
anything you like. you can even set ownership to root.root if you're logged
in as user.

it's just that you cannot untar such tar balls without being root. if you
do, the files will be unpacked, but they won't be owned by root.

> IMHO, it's just easier to be root than to write a utility to create
> slackware packages from scratch like this... but it *is* at least
> theoretically possible to make 'em without being root.

in fact, with tar's --owner, --group and --mode options, it would be
painfully easy to write makepkg that way, at least for packages that do not
require special ownership or permissions for certain files. and if you do
need them, you could use fakeroot, also mentioned in this thread.

so the tools *are* there.

--
Joost Kremers joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)