diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 4688ff4e6..10abfe28f 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+2014-01-19  Colin Watson  <cjwatson@ubuntu.com>
+
+	* grub-core/osdep/freebsd/hostdisk.c (grub_util_fd_open): Ignore
+	EPERM when modifying kern.geom.debugflags.  It is only a problem for
+	such things as installing GRUB to the MBR, in which case there'll be
+	an error later anyway, not for opening files during tests.
+
 2014-01-18  Andrey Borzenkov <arvidjaar@gmail.com>
 
 	* grub-core/Makefile.am: Build grub_emu_init.[ch] from MODULE_FILES
diff --git a/grub-core/osdep/freebsd/hostdisk.c b/grub-core/osdep/freebsd/hostdisk.c
index eb202dcc8..6145d0735 100644
--- a/grub-core/osdep/freebsd/hostdisk.c
+++ b/grub-core/osdep/freebsd/hostdisk.c
@@ -102,8 +102,16 @@ grub_util_fd_open (const char *os_dev, int flags)
   if (! (sysctl_oldflags & 0x10)
       && sysctlbyname ("kern.geom.debugflags", NULL , 0, &sysctl_flags, sysctl_size))
     {
-      grub_error (GRUB_ERR_BAD_DEVICE, "cannot set flags of sysctl kern.geom.debugflags");
-      return GRUB_UTIL_FD_INVALID;
+      if (errno == EPERM)
+	/* Running as an unprivileged user; don't worry about restoring
+	   flags, although if we try to write to anything interesting such
+	   as the MBR then we may fail later.  */
+	sysctl_oldflags = 0x10;
+      else
+	{
+	  grub_error (GRUB_ERR_BAD_DEVICE, "cannot set flags of sysctl kern.geom.debugflags");
+	  return GRUB_UTIL_FD_INVALID;
+	}
     }
 
   ret = open (os_dev, flags, S_IROTH | S_IRGRP | S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR);