environment variable or path shorthand for user that invok..

consultmac2 · External Since: Jun 09, 2006 Posts: 5

I'm working on a makefile to install my program, and it requires su
privileges, so I've written the associated documentation stating that
presumption. I'd like to put a shortcut to the program (via ln -s) on
the desktop of the user that invoked the 'make install', but I relying
on $HOME or ~/Desktop/ gives me root's home directory rather than the
desired user's home directory. Is there any environment variable or
shell command that I could perform that tell's me the desired user's
home directory even when running within 'su' ?

Thanks

-bC

Bit Twister · External Since: Dec 19, 2004 Posts: 1879

On 27 Dec 2006 18:43:34 -0800, consultmac2 wrote:
> Is there any environment variable or
> shell command that I could perform that tell's me the desired user's
> home directory even when running within 'su' ?

You may want to read http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
Which shell are you working in.

Does this work for you.
a=~user_login_here
echo $a

Felix M. Palmen · External Since: Aug 01, 2006 Posts: 20

Hallo consultmac2,

* consultmac2 <barryc.ctr.TakeThisOut@gmail.com>:
> I'm working on a makefile to install my program, and it requires su
> privileges, so I've written the associated documentation stating that
> presumption. I'd like to put a shortcut to the program (via ln -s) on
> the desktop of the user that invoked the 'make install', but I relying
> on $HOME or ~/Desktop/ gives me root's home directory rather than the
> desired user's home directory. Is there any environment variable or
> shell command that I could perform that tell's me the desired user's
> home directory even when running within 'su' ?

You should not do this AT ALL. An experienced user will invoke 'make
install' with root privileges when he wants to install system-wide.
There are many possibilities to achieve this (su, sudo, ssh, logging in
as root on a vt, ...). So there is no practical and general solution
for you to know his user-name.

Maybe the user doesn't want to install system-wide but in his
home-directory, because he is not the machine's administrator - you
should support this. So don't call something like su INSIDE the
Makefile, this is not what people will expect.

For a nice and configurable build system, take a look at GNU autotools
and maybe some similar projects.

Greetings, Felix

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Milan Babuskov · External Since: Oct 23, 2006 Posts: 247

consultmac2 wrote:
> I'm working on a makefile to install my program, and it requires su
> privileges, so I've written the associated documentation stating that
> presumption. I'd like to put a shortcut to the program (via ln -s) on
> the desktop of the user that invoked the 'make install', but I relying
> on $HOME or ~/Desktop/ gives me root's home directory rather than the
> desired user's home directory. Is there any environment variable or
> shell command that I could perform that tell's me the desired user's
> home directory even when running within 'su' ?

If you target KDE, Gnome or XFCE, you better take a look at
freedesktop.org. I'm not sure about dekstops stuff, but adding program's
link to start menu for all users is as easy as copying a .desktop file
to /usr/share/applications/

--
Milan Babuskov
http://njam.sourceforge.net
http://swoes.blogspot.com