[tex-live] Problem with mktexpk

Fabrice Popineau Fabrice.Popineau@supelec.fr
Sun, 16 Sep 2001 22:27:29 +0200


* Michael Barr <barr@barrs.org> writes:

> and tried viewing a file that used those fonts.  I got a series of
> error messages that said things like mktexpk: warning: can't open
> xyxyatip.log and further messages that windvi can't find the file
> and so on.  This for each of the xy fonts I used.  I have not set
> any security features, so that cannot be the explanation.  Any
> explanations?

Well, Win2K permissions are really not with us when it comes to the
fonts database of web2c. The problem is that any file under Win2K will
keep the permissions it has ihnerited from the location where it has
been created. So there are several potential pits:

- you need to run texsetup as an administrator, because it will put
the right permissions on the various directories (please Sebastian, if
you read, add this to the texlive 6 page, or give me access to the
page ;-) )

- you should check in the setup-*.log file for any errors, especially
related to setting the permissions

- texsetup should have defined a TEXMFTEMP variable in your
environment. This is a trick to overcome the fact that :
  * mktexpk will build the files in your %TEMP% directory before moving
    them to their final VARTEXFONTS destination
  * so the fonts will inherit the permission of your %TEMP%
    directory, hence not be readable by anybody else than you; worse: the
    other users who will need them won't be allowed to overwrite them!
  * to overcome this problem, texsetup should have defined a TEXMFTEMP
    environment variable which will shadow your TEMP variable for
    all tex internal activities. The %TEXMFTEMP% directory should have
    full access to everybody, as should have the $VARTEXFONTS
    directory
  * all the other files should have read access fo everybody.

Hope I'm clear,

Fabrice