From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: =?utf-8?Q?Ludovic_Court=C3=A8s?= <ludo@gnu.org>
Subject: Re: Why is the default $HOME /homeless-shelter?
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2019 18:33:52 +0100
Message-ID: <87r21y33b3.fsf@gnu.org>
References: <dfe85088f7328843a8b06c22eab3726b954cd62f.camel@gmail.com>
 <87h832i3n3.fsf@gnu.org>
 <7321d3a52b24c3b44dd5c1241afffc0992192a88.camel@gmail.com>
 <87imnhl6sj.fsf@lassieur.org>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Return-path: <guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org>
Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:37933)
 by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1)
 (envelope-from <ludo@gnu.org>) id 1iYZID-0007td-LJ
 for guix-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 23 Nov 2019 12:33:58 -0500
In-Reply-To: <87imnhl6sj.fsf@lassieur.org> (=?utf-8?Q?=22Cl=C3=A9ment?=
 Lassieur"'s message of "Mon, 18 Nov 2019 13:15:24 +0100")
List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution."
 <guix-devel.gnu.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/options/guix-devel>,
 <mailto:guix-devel-request@gnu.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel>
List-Post: <mailto:guix-devel@gnu.org>
List-Help: <mailto:guix-devel-request@gnu.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guix-devel>,
 <mailto:guix-devel-request@gnu.org?subject=subscribe>
Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org
Sender: "Guix-devel" <guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org>
To: =?utf-8?Q?Cl=C3=A9ment?= Lassieur <clement@lassieur.org>
Cc: guix-devel@gnu.org, Jesse Gibbons <jgibbons2357@gmail.com>

Hi Cl=C3=A9ment,

Thanks for researching this!

clement@lassieur.org (Cl=C3=A9ment Lassieur) skribis:

> https://github.com/NixOS/nix/blob/258897c265a6d6575f1669a896ab6f5ab92337c=
3/src/libstore/build.cc#L1694
>
> Set HOME to a non-existing path to prevent certain programs from using
> /etc/passwd (or NIS, or whatever) to locate the home directory (for
> example, wget looks for ~/.wgetrc).  I.e., these tools use /etc/passwd
> if HOME is not set, but they will just assume that the settings file
> they are looking for does not exist if HOME is set but points to some
> non-existing path.

I think this rationale predates chrooted builds or at least their
widespread use (last I checked chrooted builds were still not the
default for Nix):

  https://github.com/NixOS/nix/commit/a88144215c263e62528108dfae1e781058344=
ef2

Ludo=E2=80=99.