seen when running the testsuite as user nobody, with
test_site fails when the user's home directory does not exist, and is not creatable (e.g. /nonexistent).

FAILED (failures=3)
test test_pydoc failed
Re-running test 'test_site' in verbose mode
test test_site crashed -- Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.3/test/regrtest.py", line 1213, in runtest_inner
    the_package = __import__(abstest, globals(), locals(), [])
  File "/usr/lib/python3.3/test/test_site.py", line 29, in <module>
    os.makedirs(site.USER_SITE)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.3/os.py", line 258, in makedirs
    makedirs(head, mode, exist_ok)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.3/os.py", line 258, in makedirs
    makedirs(head, mode, exist_ok)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.3/os.py", line 258, in makedirs
    makedirs(head, mode, exist_ok)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.3/os.py", line 258, in makedirs
    makedirs(head, mode, exist_ok)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.3/os.py", line 269, in makedirs
    mkdir(name, mode)
PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/nonexistent'

As a sidenote, I find it a bit scary that test_site even *tries* to create USER_SITE. The test suite shouldn't touch anything outside of test-specific temp files.

Don't be scared ... :)

I'll think about a solution.

Unfixed for 2 years.  How about skipping the test if
    os.makedirs(site.USER_SITE)
fails?

New changeset 0a583e60c406 by Victor Stinner in branch '3.5':
Skip test_site if USER_SITE cannot be created
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/0a583e60c406

New changeset 1a40ee2bad6a by Victor Stinner in branch '2.7':
Skip test_site if USER_SITE cannot be created
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/1a40ee2bad6a

"Unfixed for 2 years.  How about skipping the test if os.makedirs(site.USER_SITE) fails?"

Let's do that ;-)

@Christian: Feel free to open a new issue if you have a solution to not write outside temporary directories in test_site ;-)

@doko: Thanks for the bug report! Sorry for the delay :-/ I recall this issue because I just saw it on some FreeBSD buildbots.

@Victor, it would be nice if this test could instead use/fake/mock what it needs in the build directory, or is this not possible because it needs an 'actual' user/group context to work?

Everything is possible. It's just a matter of priorities. Do you want to
work on a patch. I'm not really interested. If you consider that it'd
worth, open a new issue.

I close this issue since the iniyal bug is closed.