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This question possibly has relevance in both Unix & Linux and Stack Overflow; I'm posting at Unix & Linux first, because I think I'd like to understand the issue from the perspective of Unix/Linux convention, before any specific technical implementation.

I'm writing a standalone hello-world application that has need to read a configuration file, config.yml.
I've been advised that convention is to install the file at /etc/hello-world/config.yml.
Now, I noticed that /etc/ has write-privilege by root-only:

$ ls -ld /etc
drwxr-xr-x 127 root root 12288 Feb 14 21:16 /etc

I did not set up this Linux PC, but a competent Linux admin did, so I assume this is standard/convention to have /etc/ writable only by user root and readable by everyone else.

So my question is: how can the install mechanism of my hello-world application (cmake && make install) install anything in /etc/ if the processes are being run by a non-root user?

In terms of implementation, my "install mechanism" is an install statement in my CMakeLists.txt, e.g.:

install (FILES ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/config.yml
  DESTINATION /etc/hello-world/config.yml)

...but again, since I will be running make install as non-root, this will fail.

Again, I'm asking the question from the perspective of learning Unix/Linux convention -- I imagine this is a common scenario: a lone developer wants to install his config files to "standard" locations, which I was advised is /etc/your-app/your-config. So how does he go about doing so if /etc/ is writable only by root?

Is it understood that make install should only be done by root, or a sudo-privileged user, e.g. sudo make install?
Or is it not correct that config-files should be installed to (a subdirectory of) /etc/?
Or should /etc/'s permissions allow writing by "others"?

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You can't, by design.

Your app should store per-user configs somewhere in the user's home directory, e.g. ~/.config/your_app/config.yml

System-level configuration files are what belong in /etc/. Like if your app had a local server somewhere on the network that all users should connect to. That file would be installed by the System Admin along with the application.

See also FHS and LSB.

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  • My hello-world application would run as a service that ran a web server, therefore would be serving connecting clients...so in that case, would its config files meet what you call "system-level" config file? If yes, then it sounds like convention is that a System Admin would install the config-file and/or the application itself -- is that correct?
    – StoneThrow
    Feb 24 at 21:47
  • is it an application or a service?
    – Jasen
    Feb 25 at 6:54
  • 1
    "application would run as a service that ran a web server" that's nowhere in your original question. If it's going to be on standard web server ports (80, 443) then again (by design) you must do this as root.
    – Aaron D. Marasco
    Feb 26 at 15:50

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