rosdep run as root

[dominiquehunziker]

Hi,

I think there is a problem when rosdep is run as root, because root has no command sudo.

Here is the full error message:
executing command [sudo apt-get install libjson-glib-dev]

ERROR: Rosdep experienced an internal error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Please go to the rosdep page [1] and file a bug report with the stack trace below.
[1] : http://www.ros.org/wiki/rosdep

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/rosdep2/main.py", line 116, in rosdep_main
exit_code = _rosdep_main(args)
File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/rosdep2/main.py", line 257, in _rosdep_main
return _package_args_handler(command, parser, options, args)
File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/rosdep2/main.py", line 338, in _package_args_handler
return command_handlers[command](lookup, packages, options)
File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/rosdep2/main.py", line 494, in command_install
installer.install(uninstalled, *_install_options)
File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/rosdep2/installers.py", line 477, in install
verbose=verbose)
File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/rosdep2/installers.py", line 526, in install_resolved
result = subprocess.call(sub_command)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 493, in call
return Popen(_popenargs, **kwargs).wait()
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 679, in init
errread, errwrite)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1249, in _execute_child
raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

[tfoote]

What os are you running? On my machine I can run sudo apt-get install as root.

[dominiquehunziker]

I've tried to run rosdep in a linux container (lxc) running ubuntu 12.04 created using debootstrap (in a host machine running also 12.04). The problem is that my container filesystem does not have the package 'sudo' installed; therefore, the command sudo is not available. (Problem was easily fixed by installing sudo.) However, because I run the container as root I don't really need sudo to elevate my privileges.

So, I see two possible solutions here:

1. add 'sudo' as a dependency
2. add some kind of check of privileges, maybe something similar to

cmd = 'apt-get install ' + pkg

if os.getuid() != 0:
cmd = 'sudo ' + cmd

[jonbinney]

Looks like rosdep now has a --as-root option to handle this case, so maybe this can be closed now?

[tfoote]

This has been more fully documented in #473 and that's open to track improving the error message.