To see clearly the difference between fakeroot and a real sudo / su, just do:

$ fakeroot
# echo "Wow I have root access" > root.tst
# ls -l root.tst
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root   23 Oct 25 12:13 root.tst
# ls -l /root
ls: cannot open directory /root: Permission denied
# exit
$ ls -l root.tst
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 23 Oct 25 12:13 root.tst

As long as you are within the fakeroot shell, it looks like if you are root - as long as you do not try to do anything that really needs root privileges. And this is excactly what a packaging tool need to make packages that will make sense on any machine.

In fact, when you use fakeroot for packaging, what you want to achieve is to make the tools you run under fakeroot to see your files as owned by root. Nothing more, nothing less. So in fact, su or sudo will not work for getting the right file ownership.

To see clearly the difference between fakeroot and a real sudo / su, just do:

$ fakeroot
# echo "Wow I have root access" > root.tst
# ls -l root.tst
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root   23 Oct 25 12:13 root.tst
# ls -l /root
ls: cannot open directory /root: Permission denied
# exit
$ ls -l root.tst
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 23 Oct 25 12:13 root.tst

As long as you are within the fakeroot shell, it looks like if you are root - as long as you do not try to do anything that really needs root privileges. And this is exactly what a packaging tool need to make packages that will make sense on any machine.

In fact, when you use fakeroot for packaging, what you want to achieve is to make the tools you run under fakeroot to see your files as owned by root. Nothing more, nothing less. So in fact, su or sudo will not work for getting the right file ownership.

To see clearly the difference between fakeroot and a real sudo / su, just do:

$ fakeroot
# echo "Wow I have root access" > root.tst
# ls -l root.tst
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root   23 Oct 25 12:13 root.tst
# ls -l /root
ls: cannot open directory /root: Permission denied
# exit
$ ls -l root.tst
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 23 Oct 25 12:13 root.tst

As long as you are within the fakeroot shell, it looks like if you are root - as long as you do not try to do anything that really needs root privileges. And this is excactly what a packaging tool need to make packages that will make sense on any machine.

To see clearly the difference between fakeroot and a real sudo / su, just do:

$ fakeroot
# echo "Wow I have root access" > root.tst
# ls -l root.tst
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root   23 Oct 25 12:13 root.tst
# ls -l /root
ls: cannot open directory /root: Permission denied
# exit
$ ls -l root.tst
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 23 Oct 25 12:13 root.tst

As long as you are within the fakeroot shell, it looks like if you are root - as long as you do not try to do anything that really needs root privileges. And this is excactly what a packaging tool need to make packages that will make sense on any machine.

In fact, when you use fakeroot for packaging, what you want to achieve is to make the tools you run under fakeroot to see your files as owned by root. Nothing more, nothing less. So in fact, su or sudo will not work for getting the right file ownership.