I'm running into an issue where I do not have write access to the /var directory on a UNIX environment, and InstallAnywhere doesn't provide me the option of writing the .com.zerog.registry.xml to any other location for a product installation. Is there a parameter out there that allows for this file to be written to a different directory?
According to the IA docs:
If logged in as root, the global registry is located in \var.
If logged in as a user, it is located in the user’s home directory.
So, if you're running as root and can't write to /var, it sounds like a permissions problem with the /var directory, independent of IA. Check the permissions on /var.
If you're running as a non-root user, then the registry shouldn't be going to /var, but to $HOME/.com.zerog.registry.xml (FWIW, I just checked one of our test Linux boxes and found .com.zerog.registry.xml under both /var and under test-user $HOME directories. The docs appear to be correct).
I've also seen some very strange behavior if IA is low on space in $TMP. Make sure you have plenty of space there.
Also, have you considered running the installer with sudo, or the graphical equivalents kdesudo (KDE) and gksu (Gnome)? Those might get you where you want to go.