Re: [PATCH v2] tests: A SANITY test prereq for testing if we're root

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Aug 9, 2010, 16:55 UTC
Message-ID: <7vd3tr7mkj.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <1281132549-11587-1-git-send-email-avarab@gmail.com>

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason  <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

> + - SANITY
> +
> +   Test is not run by root user, and an attempt to write to an
> +   unwritable file is expected to fail correctly.

As I said in the previous round, I am indeed in favor of having a single "running as root---code that expects that the normal UNIXy permission based protection to apply, aka 'running in sane environment', will not work correctly" prerequisite token, rather than having separate "can I expect an unwritable file to be unwritable?" "can I expect an unreadble file to be unreadable?" bits. The name of the token _might_ be subject to debate (I am fine with either SANITY or NOROOT), but the explanation should mention this is defined to be a bit more broad than "unWRITABLE", I think. "test -w /" is a traditional way to approximately check if you are running as root (technically, it only checks if you are running with unduly high privilege---your sysadm _could_ have done "chmod 2775 /" and made it owned by the admin group).

But that is just a nitpick on the wording we could fix if necessary.

Thanks.