strange permissions in /var/lib/helix/

[amtoine]

hello there 👋 😋

this is just a quick discussion about something i'm confused with 😉
this is why i did not open an issue for this, it's just i do not understand 👀

before any of the following, i've made sure i cleaned my system from helix

• removed the packages
• removed old ~/.config/helix/runtime/
• removed /var/lib/helix/runtime/

my questions

• is it normal to run helix --grammar with sudo privileges? (more details in the sections below 😋)
• is it normal to run sudo cp ~/.config/helix/runtime/queries/oberon/ -r /var/lib/helix/runtime/queries to have language support for a custom language?
  i thought maybe helix would use ~/.config/helix/runtime/ in addition to /var/lib/helix/runtime/ to "complete the collection" of languages 😏

i'm very confused about this 😕
i had a look at the documentation a few times, same with the issue tracker and the discussions, but could not find an answer to my questions...
i hope i am clear and did not forget something, do not hesitate to ask 😋
i really would like to understand all of this 🤩

grammar fetch

> helix --grammar fetch
Fetching 107 grammars
107 grammars failed to fetch
	Failure xxx/107: Could not create grammar directory "/var/lib/helix/runtime/grammars/sources/xxx"
...

of course, the following works

> sudo helix --grammar fetch

and after that, i get

sudo helix --grammar fetch
Fetching 107 grammars
107 up to date git grammars

and

> helix --grammar fetch
Fetching 107 grammars
107 grammars failed to fetch
	Failure 0/107: Git command failed.
Stdout:
Stderr: fatal: detected dubious ownership in repository at '/var/lib/helix/runtime/grammars/sources/toml'
To add an exception for this directory, call:

	git config --global --add safe.directory /var/lib/helix/runtime/grammars/sources/toml
...

grammar build

the same with

> helix --grammar build

which appears to work for a moment but then completely crashes with errors like

/usr/bin/ld: cannot open output file /var/lib/helix/runtime/grammars/verilog.so: Permission denied
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status

and then

> sudo helix --grammar build

and after that, i get

> sudo helix --grammar build
Building 107 grammars
107 grammars already built

and the same without sudo 👌

additional context

> helix --health
Config file: /home/amtoine/.config/helix/config.toml
Language file: /home/amtoine/.config/helix/languages.toml
Log file: /home/amtoine/.cache/helix/helix.log
Runtime directory: /var/lib/helix/runtime
Clipboard provider: xclip
System clipboard provider: xclip

...

> helix --version
helix 22.08.1

> uname -nsrom
Linux archlinux 6.0.9-arch1-1 x86_64 GNU/Linux

> pacman -Qo helix
/usr/bin/helix is owned by helix 22.08.1-1

> pacman -Si helix
Repository      : community
Name            : helix
Version         : 22.08.1-1
Description     : A post-modern modal text editor
Architecture    : x86_64
URL             : https://helix-editor.com
Licenses        : MPL2
Groups          : None
Provides        : None
Depends On      : bash
Optional Deps   : None
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Download Size   : 8.52 MiB
Installed Size  : 96.46 MiB
Packager        : Maxim Baz <[email protected]>
Build Date      : Fri 02 Sep 2022 09:54:36 PM CEST
Validated By    : MD5 Sum  SHA-256 Sum  Signature

[amtoine]

i fear that is related to #3346 and #4128 🤔

i'm so confused each time i reinstall helix, so sorry about that 😮‍💨

[the-mikedavis]

Yeah, this is a case of #3346: if you installed helix through a package manager like pacman, it puts the runtime files under /var/lib/ or somewhere else that needs priviledges to change. You can use sudo to modify the files there (adding custom queries for a language as you say) but it's a little messy: the package manager probably assumes that you won't edit the files it puts in place. Ideally we would read custom queries out of ~/.config/helix/runtime as overrides to the ones the package manager installed but we don't do that currently (#3346 covers that).

[amtoine]

i get it now 😌

thanks a lot @the-mikedavis and sorry for the kinda duplicate discussion...
i think i really needed a definite answer like yours to dissipate my confusion 😮

thanks again 💪