Cannot build python packages under a non-root user

[YaraslauZhylko]

I have ubuntu-in-termux installed in Termux app (from F-DROID).

I've created a new user (yaraslau) and am using proot ... /bin/login -f yaraslau to login directly into the user's bash shell. My user is also in the sudoers: yaraslau ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL.

I have python3.10 installed. I also have a virtual environment created and activated with virtualenvwrapper:

$ pip -V
pip 22.1.2 from /home/yaraslau/.virtualenvs/scribe/lib/python3.10/site-packages/pip (python 3.10)

Whenever I try to install packages that have wheels with pip install {package_name}, everything works fine.

But when I try the same for packages that require building I get the same permission denied error for all any of them:

pip install pyrsistent --verbose
Using pip 22.1.2 from /home/yaraslau/.virtualenvs/scribe/lib/python3.10/site-packages/pip (python 3.10)
Looking in indexes: https://pypi.org/simple, https://pypi.fury.io/DjpJLqHt9rGdNcsq56zc/dialogue/
Collecting pyrsistent
  Using cached pyrsistent-0.18.1.tar.gz (100 kB)
  Running command pip subprocess to install build dependencies
  Looking in indexes: https://pypi.org/simple, https://pypi.fury.io/DjpJLqHt9rGdNcsq56zc/dialogue/, https://pypi.fury.io/DjpJLqHt9rGdNcsq56zc/dialogue/
  Collecting setuptools>=42
    Using cached setuptools-62.4.0-py3-none-any.whl (1.2 MB)
  Collecting wheel
    Using cached wheel-0.37.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl (35 kB)
  Installing collected packages: wheel, setuptools
  Successfully installed setuptools-62.4.0 wheel-0.37.1
  Installing build dependencies ... done
  Running command Getting requirements to build wheel
  running egg_info
  writing pyrsistent.egg-info/PKG-INFO
  writing dependency_links to pyrsistent.egg-info/dependency_links.txt
  writing top-level names to pyrsistent.egg-info/top_level.txt
  reading manifest file 'pyrsistent.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
  reading manifest template 'MANIFEST.in'
  adding license file 'LICENSE.mit'
  writing manifest file 'pyrsistent.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
  Getting requirements to build wheel ... done
  Running command Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml)
  running dist_info
  creating /tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent.egg-info
  writing /tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent.egg-info/PKG-INFO
  writing dependency_links to /tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent.egg-info/dependency_links.txt
  writing top-level names to /tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent.egg-info/top_level.txt
  writing manifest file '/tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
  reading manifest file '/tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
  reading manifest template 'MANIFEST.in'
  adding license file 'LICENSE.mit'
  writing manifest file '/tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
  creating '/tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent-0.18.1.dist-info'
  error: [('/tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent.egg-info/dependency_links.txt', '/tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent-0.18.1.dist-info/dependency_links.txt', "[Errno 13] Permission denied: '/tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent-0.18.1.dist-info/dependency_links.txt'"), ('/tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent.egg-info/top_level.txt', '/tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent-0.18.1.dist-info/top_level.txt', "[Errno 13] Permission denied: '/tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent-0.18.1.dist-info/top_level.txt'"), ('/tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent.egg-info', '/tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent-0.18.1.dist-info', "[Errno 13] Permission denied: '/tmp/pip-modern-metadata-435gcno0/pyrsistent-0.18.1.dist-info'")]
  error: subprocess-exited-with-error

  × Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml) did not run successfully.
  │ exit code: 1
  ╰─> See above for output.

  note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
  full command: /home/yaraslau/.virtualenvs/scribe/bin/python /home/yaraslau/.virtualenvs/scribe/lib/python3.10/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pep517/in_process/_in_process.py prepare_metadata_for_build_wheel /tmp/tmpxke1ce1r
  cwd: /tmp/pip-install-okufrse0/pyrsistent_b5271438419d4d49a7471bfc8360e0cf
  Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml) ... error
error: metadata-generation-failed

× Encountered error while generating package metadata.
╰─> See above for output.

note: This is an issue with the package mentioned above, not pip.
hint: See above for details.

The permissions on the /tmp directory seem to be in order:

drwxrwxrwt.   2 yaraslau yaraslau  3452 Jun 16 11:45 tmp/

...except for this suspecious selinux-like . 🤨

drwxrwxrwt.   2 yaraslau yaraslau  u:object_r:app_data_file:s0:c176,c257,c512,c768 3452 Jun 16 11:45 tmp/

Running sudo pip install works correctly but installs the package globally.

Runing the virtualenv version with sudo also works as expected:

$ sudo /home/yaraslau/.virtualenvs/scribe/bin/pip install pyrsistent
Collecting pyrsistent
  Downloading pyrsistent-0.18.1.tar.gz (100 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100.5/100.5 kB 2.1 MB/s eta 0:00:00
  Installing build dependencies ... done
  Getting requirements to build wheel ... done
  Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml) ... done
Building wheels for collected packages: pyrsistent
  Building wheel for pyrsistent (pyproject.toml) ... done
  Created wheel for pyrsistent: filename=pyrsistent-0.18.1-cp310-cp310-linux_aarch64.whl size=106247 sha256=2584f363dd7c7ca7121c4d0728eeda998894f6722d57863d3abc1477252cd126
  Stored in directory: /root/.cache/pip/wheels/42/cf/03/ae35459d6c32fce920e7eb28fa325fdeced7a39fb9b98c56f0
Successfully built pyrsistent
Installing collected packages: pyrsistent
Successfully installed pyrsistent-0.18.1

What can possibly be wrong with my user's permissions? 🤔

[YaraslauZhylko]

Just in case, all the dependencies install fine on the "generic" Ubuntu on the laptop.