Despite comment #15 in bug 267103, portage-2.1.9.3 not only continues to include /etc/portage in CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK, it no longer obeys CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="-/etc/portage" in /etc/make.conf: # echo 'CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="-/etc/portage"' >>/etc/make.conf # emerge --info | grep '^Portage\|CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK' Portage 2.1.9.2 (default/linux/amd64, gcc-4.4.4, glibc-2.12.1-r1, 2.6.35-gentoo-r5 x86_64) CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo" # emerge -1 =sys-apps/portage-2.1.9.3 [...] # emerge --info | grep '^Portage\|CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK' Portage 2.1.9.3 (default/linux/amd64, gcc-4.4.4, glibc-2.12.1-r1, 2.6.35-gentoo-r5 x86_64) CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/portage /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo" The same holds for portage-2.2_rc79. Full emerge --info: Portage 2.1.9.3 (default/linux/amd64, gcc-4.4.4, glibc-2.12.1-r1, 2.6.35-gentoo-r5 x86_64) ================================================================= System uname: Linux-2.6.35-gentoo-r5-x86_64-Intel-R-_Core-TM-2_Duo_CPU_U9300_@_1.20GHz-with-gentoo-2.0.1 Timestamp of tree: Sat, 11 Sep 2010 00:45:02 +0000 app-shells/bash: 4.1_p7 dev-lang/python: 2.6.5-r3, 3.1.2-r4 dev-util/cmake: 2.8.1-r2 sys-apps/baselayout: 2.0.1 sys-apps/openrc: 0.6.3 sys-apps/sandbox: 2.3-r1 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.67 sys-devel/automake: 1.10.3, 1.11.1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.20.1-r1 sys-devel/gcc: 4.4.4-r1 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.1 sys-devel/libtool: 2.2.10 sys-devel/make: 3.81-r2 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.35 (sys-kernel/linux-headers) ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64" ACCEPT_LICENSE="* -@EULA" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -march=nocona -g" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/X11/xkb" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/portage /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -march=nocona -g" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="assume-digests collision-protect distlocks fixlafiles fixpackages news nostrip protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unknown-features-warn unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans userfetch" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/Linux/Gentoo" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/" PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS="-O" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://192.168.0.1/gentoo-portage" USE="aac alsa amd64 berkdb cjk cli crypt cxx dri dvd fortran gif iconv ipv6 joystick jpeg jpeg2k lame live mad mmx modules mp3 mudflap multilib ncurses nptl nptlonly ogg openmp oss perl png pppd python quicktime readline reflection sdl session sse sse2 ssl theora tiff truetype unicode vorbis x264 xorg zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache cgi cgid dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby18" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="intel" XTABLES_ADDONS="quota2 psd pknock lscan length2 ipv4options ipset ipp2p iface geoip fuzzy condition tee tarpit sysrq steal rawnat logmark ipmark dhcpmac delude chaos account" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, LINGUAS, MAKEOPTS, PORTAGE_BUNZIP2_COMMAND, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS
I think it's just leaking in from your shell environment and you need to source /etc/profile. Try this: echo $CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK source /etc/profile echo $CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK
Right you are -- sorry! (Though it seems odd that CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK should be exported to the environment; is there a reason for that?)
It's just a side effect from the earlier portage-2.1.9.x ebuild setting in via /etc/env.d/. Anything that's set in /etc/env.d/ gets exported by /etc/profile.
Ah, I see -- thanks for the clarification. I'll go ahead and close this as INVALID.