If you want to install software without admin rights, when the installation program asks you whether you want to install for only your login or for all users, choose 'Only for me.' This may get you around the problem of needing an administrator password for installation.

Assume I have ssh access to some Ubuntu server as user and I need some not system tools to be installed for convenience (mc, rtorrent, mcedit). I do not want to bother admins for these small programs.

Is there a way to install them (make them run) without using something like sudo apt-get install?

Braiam

5 Answers

1. Compile and install into ~/bin (and edit your .bashrc to set the PATH to include it). libraries can similarly be compiled and installed into ~/lib (set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to it), and development headers can be installed into e.g. ~/includes.

2. Depending on the specific details of the programs you want to install and the libraries they depend upon, you can download the .deb files and use 'dpkg-deb -x' to extract them underneath your home directory. You will then have a lot of 'fun' setting the PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and other variables. The more complex the program or app you're installing the more fun you'll be up for :)

   You will, of course, not be able to install setuid binaries this way - they'll install but (since you don't have permission to chown them to root or set the setuid bit on them) they'll just be normal binaries owned by you.

   Similarly, daemons and system services that expect to be running as a certain UID or have the ability to change uid, or expect files to be in /etc rather ~/etc and so on aren't likely to work well, if at all.

3. Most sysadmins would consider mc and mcedit to be 'mostly harmless', innocuous programs.

   Very few, however, would consider installing a torrent client to be harmless, especially if they have to pay for bandwidth or end up being legally liable. Most sysadmins would probably not be entirely happy for end-users to be installing such software without permission. They may say 'sure, go ahead, knock yourself out' or they may not...but you should ask about anything that may cause problems for the owners/administrators of the machine.

somethingSomethingcascas

You need to compile these from source. It should just be a matter of

The binary would then be located in ~/myapps/bin. So, add export PATH='$HOME/myapps/bin:$PATH' to your .bashrc file and reload the .bashrc file with source ~/.bashrc. Of course, this assumes that gcc is installed on the system.

thrig

You can use JuNest, which creates a small Linux container in user's directory, where youcan install any packages.

I faced the same issue, here is how I quickly fixed it, assuming you have a linux server of the same OS and architecture.

1. Install the software on the system you control

2. Find the executable example which python and copy it to ~/

3. Copy the libraries with:

Transfer the executable and the libraries to the other system where you only have local privileges, then run the following:

This will create a folder ~/lib to store the libraries, add it to your path, and tell LD to look at the libraries there, so just add your executables and the libraries there, now you can run it as you'd elsewhere

This may be very hacky, but it's very portable, quick, and I haven't yet found something I can't run that way, of course, the software cannot try to do things that need root access, like binding to a lower port than 1024, etc.

muru

I'm having the same problem as you. I haven't tried it yet but it seems that Linuxbrew can be handy on this issue.

Install Without Admin Rights

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In so far I'm enjoying the Windows 10 experience. A few tweaks to the GUI and I'm fairly happy with it. What I've been very annoyed about, and I've been hearing this has also been a big issue with Windows 8, has been privileges. For about a month I didn't have any issues. Then, all of a sudden (and I don't think there was an update), just before the new year iTunes started kick back that it wasn't installed properly and there wasn't a procedure entry point in the DLL folder. Thinking it was just the program, I tried to reinstall, but Windows Installer threw a 2503 error code.

After doing some easy searching, it looks like it was a permissions issue. After checking all settings within the Install program, running the install program as admin, unregistering and reregistering with the server, double checking UAC as being off, and checked to make sure my user was part of the admin group the install program still wouldn't work. Finally, I enabled the Admin user and logged into it. No issue. So, obviously is a UAC issue. Just on the off chance that it would work I closed explorer and launched it with admin rights. Windows Install program ran just fine.

How To Install Programs Without Admin Acc…

Okay, so maybe it was a glitch with iTunes installer. This is a technical preview after all. No. It wasn't just with that program. If I want to install or uninstall ANY PROGRAMS in Windows 10, I HAVE to run Explorer as admin or log into the admin account. It doesn't matter anymore. Windows Installer will always throw a 2053 error. This is THE MOST ANNOYING thing I have run across so far. One simple search of 2053 brings up plenty of results of others who have this issue (more in 8-8.1 than 7, but sometimes in 7).

Install Software Without Admin Access

I can tell you right now. If this kind of an issue doesn't get fixed, or a solution is found, I will NEVER buy Windows 10.