Libevent not linking

[jumprope-zz]

Trying to link Libevent to use Tmux on a terminal running OS X Mavericks to which I don't have root access. The current situation looks like this:

~% brew install tmux
Warning: tmux-1.9a already installed

~% brew install libevent
Warning: libevent-2.0.21 already installed, it's just not linked

~% brew link libevent
Linking /usr/local/Cellar/libevent/2.0.21...
Error: Could not symlink include/evdns.h
/usr/local/include is not writable.

~% sudo brew link libevent
Password:
Error: Cowardly refusing to sudo brew link
You can use brew with sudo, but only if the brew executable is owned by root.
However, this is both not recommended and completely unsupported so do so at
your own risk.

In another issue, "manually linking" Libevent was discussed as a possible solution, but I'm not sure whether I can do this without root access?

[MikeMcQuaid]

sudo chown -R $USER $(brew --prefix)

[jumprope-zz]

Thanks very much, but sorry I'm a noob, would you mind telling me what exactly that does? I would hopefully rather know before running it.

[MikeMcQuaid]

No worries. That gives your current user access to /usr/local which it needs if it wants to run Homebrew.

[jumprope-zz]

Hooray! It worked!!!! Thank you!!! Should I now revoke my current user's access to /usr/local for security's sake, or will that happen automatically?

[MikeMcQuaid]

No, it's fine as your current user should be able to access /usr/local.

[jumprope-zz]

OK great, thanks again!!

[ayubkhanp]

Thanks @MikeMcQuaid . I had the same issue.

[freedomprogramer]

cool @MikeMcQuaid ! This situation always bothered me, so thanks