homebrew posts

Unprivileged Homebrew install, 2021 edition

On my new MacBook, I’ve been isolating responsibilities into separate user accounts. This includes an unprivileged “manager” account for installing most global third-party software, and a few development accounts for different purposes. I use Homebrew to install some dev related software, but my old Homebrew setup didn’t work with this conceptually, nor with the more locked down privileges of newer Mac OS versions. I didn’t want to give Homebrew or its packages admin or root privileges, so I have adapted Homebrew’s untar anywhere method to install a globally available Homebrew using the unprivileged manager account, only requiring a privileged account briefly. I’ve also used untar anywhere for a per-account Homebrew install to allow each dev account to have custom versions of any desired packages, with no privileged account required.

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Homebrew install.sh without root

[Update]The following method no longer seems to work due to changes in the install.sh script as well as locked down permissions in newer OS versions. Because of this and changes to my general setup, I have a new Homebrew setup that uses Homebrew’s untar anywhere method.[/Update]

I installed Homebrew, a Mac package manager, recently on my main computer.

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