Re: is it possible (re-)configure the portable version of miktex so that write access to the distribution is not needed?

In fact, it is possible to provide specially repackaged binaries with everything pre-rolled into them. In your case, that might be a good thing, because you have a specific, non-moving target that you are working with. The disadvantage of the pre-set binary approach is that it is less flexible. The advantage is that it is inflexible and loads faster than usual. In your case, that is exactly what you want.

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Pember [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 1:49 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [MiKTeX] is it possible (re-)configure the portable version of miktex so that write access to the distribution is not needed?

Since there was some confusion, this is hopefully a clearer version of my previous post.

We include the portable version of MikTeX in our software distribution because we have a report generation tool that uses MikTeX as a back end. 
Our users don't actually use MikTeX directly. The report generation tool is command line only. The MikTeX executables that we use are accessed by our report generation tool and are used in "batchmode". (BTW, we include copyright notices, etc., for MikTeX in the distribution.)

What we did is this.

1) we downloaded the 2.9 portable version of MikTeX and installed it.

2) we ran the portable version on a tex file that downloads all the packages to which our users need access for the report generation tool.

3) we then include the MikTeX distribution folder in our distribution. 
Our report generation tool (python) executes the MikTeX executables it needs to. Because we're using the portable version, no MikTeX initialization or Windows registry access is needed.

This actually works except for one small feature: MikTeX's pdflatex and latex need the files texmf.fndb and mpm.fndb (in miktex/data/le)  to be writeable by users, specifically, users with non-admin accounts. If we make these two files writeable, this approach works without any problems.

(If they aren't writeable, errors like "pdflatex: Windows API error 5: 
Access is denied" occur.)

The issue with this approach is that our customers are typically installing our software, including the MikTeX directory, in Program Files.  Some of our customers have a security requirement that no file in Program Files can be writeable by users. Also, these are often multiuser environments.

It does seem from the tests I ran that texmf.fndb and mpm.fndb do not need to be writeable if all the packages needed are already installed. 
Specifically, if all the packages are already available, pdflatex and latex do not change the contents or the time stamps of texmf.fndb and mpm.fndb.

My question is: is there some way to re-configure the portable version MikTeX so that write access to texmf.fndb and mpm.fndb is not needed.


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