Something similar to this perhaps ? Not fully tested yet, but it should avoid the race of trying to unlink tempfile several times, and also fix the file name in error messages.
Index: xinstall.c =================================================================== RCS file: /cvs/src/usr.bin/xinstall/xinstall.c,v retrieving revision 1.68 diff -u -p -r1.68 xinstall.c --- xinstall.c 8 Feb 2019 12:53:44 -0000 1.68 +++ xinstall.c 10 Feb 2019 14:53:49 -0000 @@ -222,6 +222,7 @@ install(char *from_name, char *to_name, struct timespec ts[2]; int devnull, from_fd, to_fd, serrno, files_match = 0; char *p; + char *target_name = tempfile; (void)memset((void *)&from_sb, 0, sizeof(from_sb)); (void)memset((void *)&to_sb, 0, sizeof(to_sb)); @@ -311,10 +312,14 @@ install(char *from_name, char *to_name, } else { files_match = 1; (void)unlink(tempfile); + target_name = to_name; + (void)close(temp_fd); } } - (void)close(to_fd); - to_fd = temp_fd; + if (!files_match) { + (void)close(to_fd); + to_fd = temp_fd; + } } /* @@ -333,13 +338,15 @@ install(char *from_name, char *to_name, if ((gid != (gid_t)-1 || uid != (uid_t)-1) && fchown(to_fd, uid, gid)) { serrno = errno; - (void)unlink(tempfile); - errx(1, "%s: chown/chgrp: %s", tempfile, strerror(serrno)); + if (target_name == tempfile) + (void)unlink(tempfile); + errx(1, "%s: chown/chgrp: %s", target_name, strerror(serrno)); } if (fchmod(to_fd, mode)) { serrno = errno; - (void)unlink(tempfile); - errx(1, "%s: chmod: %s", tempfile, strerror(serrno)); + if (target_name == tempfile) + (void)unlink(tempfile); + errx(1, "%s: chmod: %s", target_name, strerror(serrno)); } /* @@ -349,7 +356,7 @@ install(char *from_name, char *to_name, if (fchflags(to_fd, flags & SETFLAGS ? fset : from_sb.st_flags & ~UF_NODUMP)) { if (errno != EOPNOTSUPP || (from_sb.st_flags & ~UF_NODUMP) != 0) - warnx("%s: chflags: %s", tempfile, strerror(errno)); + warnx("%s: chflags: %s", target_name, strerror(errno)); } if (flags & USEFSYNC)