[pacman-dev] [RFC] command-line provided paths under --sysroot

[Emil Velikov]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2021 at 07:47, Andrew Gregory <andrew.gregory.8 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Implementing --sysroot the lazy way with a simple chroot turned out to
> have a number of complications that significantly reduce its utility.
> I've been sitting on a patch to reimplement it by prefixing all
> configuration paths with the sysroot, but this raises the question of
> how we should handle paths provided on the command line.  Using chroot
> meant that all paths, regardless of what they were or where they came
> from, would be interpreted relative to the sysroot.  Switching to
> manually adjusting paths means that we have the option to change that.
>
> I'm inclined to change pacman to use command line arguments/options
> as-is and have --sysroot just modify values from the config file.
> I think that's the friendlier option for users.
>
Fwiw this seems like a great idea.

I think it also helps for clearer privilege separation, since one
doesn't need to have the extra chroot requirements into the mix. Yes
there's a chroot in libalpm, but it's very self-contained and clear.

Hope it helps,
-Emil