I have discovered that if we leave the variable PORTAGE_TMPDIR in make.conf commented out (as is the default), distcc will attempt to use /.distcc as its working directory! This is because of the line in make.conf: DISTCC_DIR="${PORTAGE_TMPDIR}/.distcc" That's fine if PORTAGE_TMPDIR is defined, but if not, the variable expands to nothing, .distcc gets created in the root directory, and we run into access violations when attempting to compile. As it's perfectly possible to maintain a working system without uncommenting that line (to keep the default), some users may get hit with this odd problem, as I did. Mentioning this in the Docs may prevent this bit of head-scratching. :)
Created attachment 97265 [details, diff] Added a bit about PORTAGE_TMPDIR to doc/en/distcc.xml I have added a few lines to code listing 2.2 regarding this bug.
(In reply to comment #0) > This is because of the line in make.conf: > > DISTCC_DIR="${PORTAGE_TMPDIR}/.distcc" The only reason you have that line in your make.conf is because you added it and you reference an undefined variable. The doc does not tell you to add DISTCC_DIR (removed more than 2 years ago, see bug #53015). If you want to override defaults, you're on your own.
