[aur-general] namcap - games group & non-standard directory

[Justin Dray]

On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 at 21:16 respiranto <respiranto at icloud.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> I have just finished packaging freesweep, a minesweeper-game, after
> having had many problems to do so.
>
> Anyways, the current problem is, that namcap complains about:
> /var/games/freesweep/{,sweeptimes} being owned by root:games (E) and
> /var/games/{,freesweep/{,sweeptimes}} existing in a non-standard
> directory (W)
>
> The point is, that freesweep needs a file, that any user can write to.
> The way this would be done by `make install' is exactly how I did it in
> the PKGBUILD - make the file (sweeptimes) and its directory owned by
> root:games and give the games group write permissions.
>
> Some days ago, Justin Dray proposed to do exactly this to solve a more
> or less identical problem [1], however I would like to avoid pushing a
> PKGBUILD whose package does not pass namcap.
> So is there any better way to achieve what I want to?
>
> Furthermore I don't know, how strict the policy to only use standard
> directories, as listed here [2], is.
> And why does the /var/games directory exist if a package may not use it?
> May it only be populated by installed programs?
>
> [1]
>
> https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/aur-general/2015-September/031535.html
> [2]
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_packaging_standards#Directories


/var/lib/freesweep would probably be the right path and why it is
complaining. (see man file-hierarchy for more info, which does not list
/var/games at all). I'm not sure why it would complain though, since
/var/games is created by the filesystem package, and as you said, that
sounds like an endorsement for it's existence to me.

Ownership I'm not sure on, but someone else on this list should be able to
advise.

Cheers,
Justin