[GNC-dev] Does gnc-fq-update need administrative privilege on Windows or MacOS or Linux?

Chris Good goodchris96 at gmail.com
Sat Jun 12 03:59:02 EDT 2021


-----Original Message-----
From: John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us> 
Sent: Thursday, 10 June 2021 1:14 PM
To: Chris Good <goodchris96 at gmail.com>
Cc: gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
Subject: Re: [GNC-dev] Does gnc-fq-update need administrative privilege on
Windows or MacOS or Linux?

> On Jun 9, 2021, at 12:57 AM, Chris Good <goodchris96 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Online_Quotes#Helper_Scripts says
> 
> gnc-fq-update
> 
> This program installs or updates the Finance::Quote software module 
> along with its dependencies. This program normally needs superuser or 
> administrative privileges to succeed.
> 
> What does "normally" mean?
> 
> It is my recollection that gnc-fq-update in Windows did NOT need to be 
> run as an administrator.
> 
> Maybe that is because my Windows user is an administrator?
> 
> Can anyone throw any light on this?

Maybe before Windows 10 that was true, but Windows 10 tightened up security
a lot and that trend has continued in the ~6 years since the original Win10
release. Nowadays any installation or modification of software code requires
a UAE so you must run gnc-fq-update from an admin account and answer yes to
the UAE dialog.

It's probably possible to get cpan to run in user space but even though it
writes its build directory in ~/.cpan it wants to put the modules in
/Library/Perl and so requires sudo.

Regards,
John Ralls

Hi John, thanks for your answer.

I did some testing in Windows 10 running gnc-fq-update and it worked fine
reinstalling Date::Manip without "Run as administrator" 
and also did not ask for permission via a "User Access Control" dialog. I
think this is because it puts everything in C:\Strawberry and this directory
(and all subdirectories as far as a I can see in a quick check)  is created
with Modify, Read & execute, List folder contents, Read and Write permission
for the Authenticated Users group.

Running "Install Online Price Retrieval for GnuCash" runs Perl.msi to
install perl which does invoke a "User Access Control" dialog.

I assume your comment about /Library/Perl refers to macOS.

Regards, Chris Good



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