[Tex/LaTex] Error in manual installation of package

installingtexlive

I am trying to manually install the Latex formats provided by my university on my Linux machine with TeX Live.
My TEXMFLOCAL folder is /usr/local/share/texmf. I copied the required files to subdirectories here. However, I am not able run mktexlsr here.

The following is what I tried:

mycomp:/usr/local/share/texmf # whoami
root
mycomp:/usr/local/share/texmf # mktexlsr
mktexlsr: Updating /etc/texmf/ls-R... 
/usr/lib/mktex/mktexlsr: line 184: /usr/local/share/texmf/ls-R: Permission denied
mktexlsr: could not create file '/usr/local/share/texmf/ls-R'. Skipping...
mktexlsr: Updating /var/lib/texmf/main/ls-R... 
mktexlsr: Updating /var/cache/texmf/fonts/ls-R... 
mktexlsr: Updating /var/lib/texmf/ls-R... 
mktexlsr: Done.

mycomp:/usr/local/share/texmf # touch ls-R
mycomp:/usr/local/share/texmf # ls -l
total 8
drwxrwxr-x 5 root root 4096 Apr 20 16:36 doc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    0 Apr 25 17:33 ls-R
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Apr 20 16:36 tex

mycomp:/usr/local/share/texmf # mktexlsr
warning: kpathsea: /usr/local/share/texmf/ls-R: No usable entries in ls-R.
warning: kpathsea: See the manual for how to generate ls-R.
warning: kpathsea: /usr/local/share/texmf/ls-R: No usable entries in ls-R.
warning: kpathsea: See the manual for how to generate ls-R.
mktexlsr: Updating /etc/texmf/ls-R... 
mktexlsr: /usr/local/share/texmf/ls-R: no write permission, skipping...
mktexlsr: Updating /var/lib/texmf/main/ls-R... 
mktexlsr: Updating /var/cache/texmf/fonts/ls-R... 
mktexlsr: Updating /var/lib/texmf/ls-R... 
mktexlsr: Done.

What I am doing wrong here?

Edit:

The output of ls -ld is:

mycomp:/usr/local/share/texmf # ls -ld
drwxrwxr-x 4 root root 4096 Apr 25 17:33 .

Best Answer

The problem is that your /usr/local/share/texmf belongs to group root, while it should be from mktex.

The documentation mentions setgid, but it is not set here:

ls -l /usr/bin/mktexlsr
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 Nov 19  2014 /usr/bin/mktexlsr -> /usr/lib/mktex/public

ls -l /usr/lib/mktex/public
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root mktex 11032 Oct 15  2014 /usr/lib/mktex/public

Let's hope that someone will find the explanation.

Meanwhile, here is how to solve the problem:

cd /usr/local/share/texmf/
# create ls-R if it does not exist yet
sudo touch ls-R
# change the ls-R group to mktex
sudo chgrp mktex ls-R
# change file mode bits (readable by all, writable by root and mktex group)
sudo chmod 664 ls-R

check:

ls -l /usr/local/share/texmf/ls-R 
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root mktex 246 Mar 13 11:39 /usr/local/share/texmf/ls-R
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