[Python-Dev] cpython (3.2): Issue #11956: Skip test_import.test_unwritable_directory on FreeBSD when run as (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Sat Oct 8 17:03:34 CEST 2011

Pretending the snark to be slightly serious: you've missed the point. The builtbots are building unreliable code, that being the point of the test suite. Doing unpredictable stuff as root is bad juju.

Running the builtbots and their tests should not be run as root except for a very few special tests, and those few need careful consideration and sandboxing.

No no no no no. Running as a non-"privileged" user does not gain much.

The code may be unreliable, but it is not untrusted. If the code disturbs the system, it can do so nearly as much as an unprivileged user as the superuser. The critical part of the file system is the build area, and the build slave has full access to that either way.

HOWEVER, the whole suite should not be tested as root because the code being testing is by definition untrusted.

No, you got that definition wrong. "unreliable" is correct; we don't have any untrusted code in Python. We trust all committers, as do we trust the integrity of the repository server.

Regards, Martin

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