![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/da275274bab3cdbc839a9d0e8f2c2299.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Actually I've just realized that $TMPDIR isn't set for root. Most probably this is why LuaTeX chose my home folder (sudo -s made me root!) during database and format generation as its fall-back cache location because there was no $TMPDIR. Still, LuaTeX should've used the cache path specified in texmfcnf.lua in the first place.
Just checking: does
/usr/local/context/2008-05-26-beta/texmf-cache
exist and is it writeable for everybody?
It exists but used to have permissions 775 which were the ones rsync set. Changed them to 777 and retried database generation as normal user first. The directory above (set in texmfcnf.lua) is still ignored. Since $TMPDIR exists for a normal user LuaTeX chooses this one for its cache location. After wiping all luatex-cache directories from my machine I made another fresh attempt at database generation, this time as root. Again the cache settings in texmfcnf.lua are ignored and since there's no $TMPDIR for root LuaTeX resorts to $HOME. Oliver