mirrorselect requires root for no obvious reason, exiting with an error message that is simply not true: % mirrorselect -i ERROR: Must be root to write to /SCRATCH/gentoo/etc/portage/make.conf! % echo "# look ma I can write to it" >>/SCRATCH/gentoo/etc/portage/make.conf % tail -n1 /SCRATCH/gentoo/etc/portage/make.conf # look ma I can write to it I think mirrorselect should only fail with an error like this if it actually could not open the file for writing. In this case I am running prefix, but presumably it will fail on a normal system too if the file permissions are changed to allow writing by the user running mirrorselect. As a workaround, I can do % mirrorselect -i -o >>/SCRATCH/gentoo/etc/portage/make.conf It might be useful if the error suggested this alternative, when the file cannot be written (I found this workaround by looking at the source code). Portage 3.0.48.1 (python 3.11.4-final-0, default/linux/amd64/17.0, gcc-12, glibc-2.37-r3, 3.10.0-1160.11.1.el7.x86_64 x86_64) ================================================================= System uname: Linux-3.10.0-1160.11.1.el7.x86_64-x86_64-Intel-R-_Core-TM-_i7-4790_CPU_@_3.60GHz-with-glibc2.37 KiB Mem: 16204164 total, 737988 free KiB Swap: 32605180 total, 32605180 free Timestamp of repository gentoo: Thu, 20 Jul 2023 00:45:01 +0000 sh bash 5.2_p15-r3 ld GNU ld (Gentoo 2.40 p5) 2.40.0 ccache version 4.6.1 [enabled] app-misc/pax-utils: 1.3.7::gentoo app-shells/bash: 5.2_p15-r3::gentoo dev-lang/perl: 5.38.0-r1::gentoo dev-lang/python: 2.7.18_p16-r1::gentoo, 3.10.11::gentoo, 3.11.4::gentoo, 3.12.0_beta2::gentoo dev-lang/rust: 1.69.0-r1::gentoo dev-lang/rust-bin: 1.64.0-r1::gentoo dev-util/ccache: 4.6.1::gentoo dev-util/cmake: 3.26.4-r1::gentoo dev-util/meson: 1.1.1::gentoo sys-apps/baselayout: 2.13-r1::gentoo sys-apps/openrc: 0.45.2::gentoo sys-apps/sandbox: 2.31::gentoo sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13-r8::gentoo, 2.69-r5::gentoo, 2.71-r6::gentoo sys-devel/automake: 1.16.5-r1::gentoo sys-devel/binutils: 2.40-r5::gentoo sys-devel/binutils-config: 5.5::gentoo sys-devel/clang: 15.0.7-r1::gentoo, 16.0.4::gentoo sys-devel/gcc: 9.5.0::gentoo, 12.2.1_p20230121-r1::gentoo, 13.1.1_p20230527::gentoo sys-devel/gcc-config: 2.11::gentoo sys-devel/libtool: 2.4.7-r1::gentoo sys-devel/lld: 15.0.7::gentoo sys-devel/llvm: 15.0.7::gentoo, 16.0.4::gentoo sys-devel/make: 4.4.1-r1::gentoo sys-kernel/linux-headers: 6.3::gentoo (virtual/os-headers) sys-libs/glibc: 2.37-r3::gentoo Repositories: gentoo location: /SCRATCH/gentoo/srv/repos/gentoo sync-type: webrsync sync-uri: rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage priority: -1000 volatile: True sync-webrsync-verify-signature: true gentoo-draconx location: /SCRATCH/gentoo/srv/repos/gentoo-draconx masters: gentoo volatile: True gentoo-fixes location: /SCRATCH/gentoo/srv/repos/gentoo-fixes masters: gentoo volatile: True ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64" ACCEPT_LICENSE="@FREE" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=haswell -pipe" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/SCRATCH/gentoo/etc /etc /usr/share/gnupg/qualified.txt" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/SCRATCH/gentoo/etc/env.d /etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/dconf /etc/env.d /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/language.dat.d /etc/texmf/language.def.d /etc/texmf/updmap.d /etc/texmf/web2c" CONFIG_SHELL="/SCRATCH/gentoo/bin/bash" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=haswell -pipe" DISTDIR="/SCRATCH/gentoo/var/cache/distfiles" EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--quiet-build --keep-going --autounmask=n --autounmask-write=n --dynamic-deps=n --unordered-display --verbose-conflicts --with-bdeps-auto=n" ENV_UNSET="CARGO_HOME DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS DISPLAY GDK_PIXBUF_MODULE_FILE GOBIN GOPATH PERL5LIB PERL5OPT PERLPREFIX PERL_CORE PERL_MB_OPT PERL_MM_OPT XAUTHORITY XDG_CACHE_HOME XDG_CONFIG_HOME XDG_DATA_HOME XDG_RUNTIME_DIR XDG_STATE_HOME" FCFLAGS="-O2 -pipe" FEATURES="assume-digests binpkg-docompress binpkg-dostrip binpkg-logs binpkg-multi-instance buildpkg-live ccache config-protect-if-modified distlocks ebuild-locks fixlafiles ipc-sandbox merge-sync multilib-strict network-sandbox news parallel-fetch pid-sandbox preserve-libs protect-owned qa-unresolved-soname-deps sfperms strict unknown-features-warn unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans unprivileged xattr" FFLAGS="-O2 -pipe" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org" INSTALL_MASK="/usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf.d/51-pulseaudio-probe.conf" LANG="en_CA.UTF-8" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed" LEX="flex" MAKEOPTS="-j5" PKGDIR="/SCRATCH/gentoo/var/cache/binpkgs" PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/SCRATCH/gentoo/" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --omit-dir-times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --human-readable --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages --exclude=/.git" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/SCRATCH/gentoo/var/tmp" SHELL="/SCRATCH/gentoo/bin/zsh" USE="X acl amd64 bzip2 cli crypt cups dri exif fbcon fontconfig fortran gdbm iconv icu ipv6 jpeg lcms libtirpc lzma multilib ncurses nls nptl openmp pcre perl png prefix pulseaudio python readline seccomp split-usr ssl svg test-rust truetype unicode xattr xft xinerama zlib" ABI_X86="64" ADA_TARGET="gnat_2021" APACHE2_MODULES="authn_core authz_core socache_shmcb unixd actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache cgi cgid dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" CALLIGRA_FEATURES="karbon sheets words" COLLECTD_PLUGINS="df interface irq load memory rrdtool swap syslog" CPU_FLAGS_X86="aes avx avx2 f16c fma3 mmx mmxext pclmul popcnt rdrand sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3" ELIBC="glibc" GPSD_PROTOCOLS="ashtech aivdm earthmate evermore fv18 garmin garmintxt gpsclock greis isync itrax mtk3301 nmea ntrip navcom oceanserver oldstyle oncore rtcm104v2 rtcm104v3 sirf skytraq superstar2 timing tsip tripmate tnt ublox ubx" INPUT_DEVICES="libinput" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LIBREOFFICE_EXTENSIONS="presenter-console presenter-minimizer" LUA_SINGLE_TARGET="lua5-1" LUA_TARGETS="lua5-1" OFFICE_IMPLEMENTATION="libreoffice" PHP_TARGETS="php8-1" POSTGRES_TARGETS="postgres12 postgres13" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_11" PYTHON_TARGETS="python3_11" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby31" VIDEO_CARDS="amdgpu fbdev intel nouveau radeon radeonsi vesa dummy v4l" XTABLES_ADDONS="quota2 psd pknock lscan length2 ipv4options ipset ipp2p iface geoip fuzzy condition tee tarpit sysrq proto steal rawnat logmark ipmark dhcpmac delude chaos account" Unset: ADDR2LINE, AR, ARFLAGS, AS, ASFLAGS, CC, CCLD, CPP, CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, CXX, CXXFILT, ELFEDIT, EXTRA_ECONF, F77FLAGS, FC, GCOV, GPROF, LC_ALL, LD, LFLAGS, LIBTOOL, LINGUAS, MAKE, MAKEFLAGS, NM, OBJCOPY, OBJDUMP, PORTAGE_BINHOST, PORTAGE_BUNZIP2_COMMAND, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, RANLIB, READELF, RUSTFLAGS, SIZE, STRINGS, STRIP, YACC, YFLAGS
