root access required when installing linux programs on web hosting servers

[Kevin Cozens]

Paul King wrote:
>> A large majority of linux programs(choose any) require root access when 
>> installing them. (some do not require root access)
>>
>> What are some workarounds for this common problem?
> 
> If this were possible I would love to install a web-based mail server on my 
> website, which generates email accounts for people, but all the ones I know of 
> require root access at *some* part of the installation.
[snip]
> The best thing I can tell you, if you are prepared to do a lot of work, and if 
> you also have a generous allocation of disk space in your account, is to 
> download the source, examine the Makefile to change the installation path, 
> library paths (use absolute paths and not relative ones), and paths to 
> installed libs. I think you are probably going to have to make related changes 
> in the source code itself.

Paul,

You have provided the solution to your own problem (although you mentioned you 
have tried it before without success). For packages built using the autoconf 
tools it should be a matter of running
	./configure --prefix=/path/to/my/root/dir
and, after building with make, using
	make DESTDIR=/path/to/my/root/dir install
to install the package.

For systems not using autoconf tools (or using a different package to do the 
same thing as autoconf), a look at the Makefiles would be in order as one of 
the first places to check for how to set the root paths and/or to find paths 
that may need changing.

-- 
Cheers!

Kevin.

http://www.ve3syb.ca/           |"What are we going to do today, Borg?"
Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172      |"Same thing we always do, Pinkutus:
                                 |  Try to assimilate the world!"
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