Cowardly refusing to `sudo brew install'

[Velrok]

Got:

user$ sudo brew install ruby
Cowardly refusing to `sudo brew install'

root@mashine$ brew install ruby
Cowardly refusing to `sudo brew install'
sh: parse_git_branch: command not found
sh: parse_svn_branch: command not found

Is this related to #6899 ?

[jacknagel]

brew install will not work with root privileges unless brew itself is owned by root.

[jacknagel]

(this is by design.)

[Velrok]

Thanks. Works now.

[kittles]

why not make "brew install will not work with root privileges unless brew itself is owned by root." the error message?

[diek]

This reminds of the article "Writing Unmaintainable Code", a sarcastic look at the stuff programmers do to make things incomprehensible. "Much of the skill in writing unmaintainable code is the art of camouflage, hiding things, or making things appear to be what they are not." Why would they want us to really understand what is going on? They make us come to a forum like this one, so they can make us look dumb. I have been using linux for about 6 months and I just bought a Mac because I was tired of MS controlling stuff and annoyances. Over the past 2 weeks I have gained a new enemy, the mayhem and chaos that is the support for some open source software. After painfully uninstalling 2 programs from the Mac I looked around and a search of the internet brought me to Home brew to manage installs. Only to discover it too comes with errors, whose solutions lead me in a circle. issue 10234

[Jtiem]

So how do I assign root privileges to brew?

[jacknagel]

The brew executable itself has to be owned by root. Note that we do not support this in any fashion, and actively recommend against it.

[alper]

That's an odd and off putting error message.

[rayray]

@jacknagel Well, then why should I have to change permissions on /usr/local/include? I never changed them in the first place, but I'm not allowed to sudo brew link xz.

[jacknagel]

Sigh. I'm tired of dealing with this.

These are your options:

(a) don't use sudo; adjust the permissions on directories in /usr/local accordingly. This is the recommended way to use Homebrew.

(b) chown the brew executable to root; and use sudo as you please. This is fine, but is not supported.

The Homebrew issue tracker is not a place to have debates about basic UNIX filesystem management. If you already have a basic understanding of these things, then you have the tools to manage Homebrew however you like at your disposal.

[mikemaccana]

+1 ditching this in favor of a useful error message.

@jacknagel: I imagine you're very tired indeed - fixing the error message to include something like your comment above will help avoid these unnecessary discussions:

"Refusing to run via sudo. brew should be able to write to /usr/local/Cellar without requiring root access. " or similar.

[rexmortus]

+1 for changing the error message.

[mxcl]

I like the way people assumed I was making it incomprehensible on purpose.

[mxcl]

The error message now includes (since ages):

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.