Pacman on RedHat

Question

Hi, I'm trying to install pacman to manage package installation at work.  I want to have it set up so that everything gets installed into my /home/user prefix.  So far I have pacman built and running, but I get the following error when I try to sync:
% pacman -S
error: you cannot perform this operation unless you are root.
Here's strace output:
open("/home/user/lib/libc.so.6", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/etc/ld.so.cache", O_RDONLY) = 3
fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=53096, ...}) = 0
mmap(NULL, 53096, PROT_READ, MAP_PRIVATE, 3, 0) = 0x2ab8f56da000
close(3) = 0
open("/lib64/libc.so.6", O_RDONLY) = 3
read(3, "\177ELF\2\1\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\3\0>\0\1\0\0\0p\332\341\3676\0\0\0"..., 832) = 832
fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0755, st_size=1713088, ...}) = 0
mmap(0x36f7e00000, 3494168, PROT_READ|PROT_EXEC, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_DENYWRITE, 3, 0) = 0x36f7e00000
mprotect(0x36f7f4c000, 2097152, PROT_NONE) = 0
mmap(0x36f814c000, 20480, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_FIXED|MAP_DENYWRITE, 3, 0x14c000) = 0x36f814c000
mmap(0x36f8151000, 16664, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_FIXED|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x36f8151000
close(3) = 0
mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x2ab8f56e7000
mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x2ab8f56e8000
arch_prctl(ARCH_SET_FS, 0x2ab8f56e7af0) = 0
mprotect(0x36f814c000, 16384, PROT_READ) = 0
mprotect(0x36f7c1b000, 4096, PROT_READ) = 0
munmap(0x2ab8f56da000, 53096) = 0
geteuid() = 2032
rt_sigaction(SIGINT, NULL, {SIG_DFL, [], 0}, 8) = 0
rt_sigaction(SIGINT, {0x406d80, [], SA_RESTORER, 0x36f7e30280}, NULL, 8) = 0
rt_sigaction(SIGTERM, NULL, {SIG_DFL, [], 0}, 8) = 0
rt_sigaction(SIGTERM, {0x406d80, [], SA_RESTORER, 0x36f7e30280}, NULL, 8) = 0
rt_sigaction(SIGSEGV, NULL, {SIG_DFL, [], 0}, 8) = 0
rt_sigaction(SIGSEGV, {0x406d80, [], SA_RESTORER, 0x36f7e30280}, NULL, 8) = 0
brk(0) = 0x3ed3000
brk(0x3ef4000) = 0x3ef4000
open("/usr/lib/locale/locale-archive", O_RDONLY) = 3
{st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=56413888, ...}) = 0
mmap(NULL, 56413888, PROT_READ, MAP_PRIVATE, 3, 0) = 0x2ab8f56e9000
close(3) = 0
uname({sys="Linux", node="myhost", ...}) = 0
ioctl(1, SNDCTL_TMR_TIMEBASE or TCGETS, 0x7fffb5821600) = -1 EINVAL (Invalid argument)
stat("/", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
stat("/home/user/var/lib/pacman/", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
open("/home/user/etc/pacman.conf", O_RDONLY) = 3
fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=2131, ...}) = 0
mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x2ab8f8cb6000
read(3, "#\n# /home/user/etc/pacman.conf"..., 4096) = 2131
stat("/home/user", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
lstat("/home", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=0, ...}) = 0
lstat("/home/user", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
stat("/home/user/var/lib/pacman/", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
stat("/home/user/var/lib/pacman/sync/core", {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
open("/home/user/var/lib/pacman/sync/core/", O_RDONLY|O_NONBLOCK|O_DIRECTORY) = 4
fstat(4, {st_mode=S_IFDIR|0755, st_size=4096, ...}) = 0
fcntl(4, F_SETFD, FD_CLOEXEC) = 0
read(3, "", 4096) = 0
close(3) = 0
munmap(0x2ab8f8cb6000, 4096) = 0
open("/usr/share/locale/locale.alias", O_RDONLY) = 3
fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=2528, ...}) = 0
mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x2ab8f8cb6000
read(3, "# Locale name alias data base.\n#"..., 4096) = 2528
read(3, "", 4096) = 0
close(3) = 0
munmap(0x2ab8f8cb6000, 4096) = 0
open("/home/user/share/locale/en_US.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/pacman.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/home/user/share/locale/en_US.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/pacman.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/home/user/share/locale/en_US/LC_MESSAGES/pacman.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/home/user/share/locale/en.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/pacman.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/home/user/share/locale/en.utf8/LC_MESSAGES/pacman.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/home/user/share/locale/en/LC_MESSAGES/pacman.mo", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
fstat(1, {st_mode=S_IFIFO|0600, st_size=0, ...}) = 0
mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x2ab8f8cb6000
close(4) = 0
write(1, "error: you cannot perform this o"..., 62error: you cannot perform this operation unless you are root.
) = 62
exit_group(1)
Also, here's my ~/etc/pacman.conf:
# /home/user/etc/pacman.conf
# See the pacman.conf(5) manpage for option and repository directives
# GENERAL OPTIONS
[options]
# The following paths are commented out with their default values listed.
# If you wish to use different paths, uncomment and update the paths.
RootDir = /home/user
DBPath = /home/user/var/lib/pacman/
CacheDir = /home/user/var/cache/pacman/pkg/
LogFile = /home/user/var/log/pacman.log
HoldPkg = pacman glibc
# If upgrades are available for these packages they will be asked for first
SyncFirst = pacman
XferCommand = /usr/bin/wget --passive-ftp -c -O %o %u
#XferCommand = /usr/bin/curl %u > %o
#CleanMethod = KeepInstalled
# Pacman won't upgrade packages listed in IgnorePkg and members of IgnoreGroup
#IgnorePkg =
#IgnoreGroup =
#NoUpgrade =
#NoExtract =
# Misc options (all disabled by default)
#NoPassiveFtp
#UseSyslog
#ShowSize
#UseDelta
#TotalDownload
# REPOSITORIES
# - can be defined here or included from another file
# - pacman will search repositories in the order defined here
# - local/custom mirrors can be added here or in separate files
# - repositories listed first will take precedence when packages
# have identical names, regardless of version number
# - URLs will have $repo replaced by the name of the current repo
# Repository entries are of the format:
# [repo-name]
# Server = ServerName
# Include = IncludePath
# The header [repo-name] is crucial - it must be present and
# uncommented to enable the repo.
# An example of a disabled remote package repository with multiple servers
# available. To enable, uncomment the following lines. You can add preferred
# servers immediately after the header and they will be used before the
# default mirrors.
[core]
Server = ftp://ftp.archlinux.org/core/os/arch
#Server = ftp://ftp.example.com/foobar/$repo/os/i686/
# The file referenced here should contain a list of 'Server = ' lines.
# An example of a custom package repository. See the pacman manpage for
# tips on creating your own repositories.
#[custom]
#Server = file:///home/custompkgs
Can anyone shed some light?  It seems to me like this might be a permissions issue.
Thanks,
Noah

Answer 1

The problem I'm running into now is that none of the post_install squibs work.  And; although I can install packages, they are looking for files relative to / as opposed to pacman.conf's RootDir.
Basically I want to be able to install _and use_ packages in an arbitrary prefix.  Might this work if I rebuilt all the packages from source using PKGBUILDs, or is there another/better way to do it?
For example, I get this when I run grep:
grep: error while loading shared libraries: libpcre.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Any way to tell it where to look as a normal (non-root) user?
Thanks,
Noah
Last edited by print (2009-06-10 19:12:56)