# time emerge portage Calculating dependencies ...done! >>> emerge (1 of 1) sys-apps/portage-2.0.51-r3 to / >>> Downloading http://trumpetti.atm.tut.fi/gentoo/distfiles/portage-2.0.51-r3.tar.bz2 --20:44:39-- http://trumpetti.atm.tut.fi/gentoo/distfiles/portage-2.0.51-r3.tar.bz2 => `/usr/portage/distfiles/portage-2.0.51-r3.tar.bz2' Resolving trumpetti.atm.tut.fi... 130.230.54.100 Connecting to trumpetti.atm.tut.fi[130.230.54.100]:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 280,663 [application/x-tar] 100%[====================================>] 280,663 586.33K/s 20:44:40 (584.21 KB/s) - `/usr/portage/distfiles/portage-2.0.51-r3.tar.bz2' saved [280663/280663] >>> md5 src_uri ;-) portage-2.0.51-r3.tar.bz2 >>> Unpacking source... >>> Unpacking portage-2.0.51-r3.tar.bz2 to /var/tmp/portage/portage-2.0.51-r3/work * Applying gcc-2.95-libsandbox.patch ... [ ok ] >>> Source unpacked. ./create-localdecls Checking truncate argument type... off_t Checking libc version... libc.so.6 Checking glibc subversion... 2.3 gcc -march=i386 -O1 -pipe -D_GNU_SOURCE -DPIC -fPIC -D_REENTRANT -Wall -c libsandbox.c gcc -march=i386 -O1 -pipe -D_GNU_SOURCE -DPIC -fPIC -D_REENTRANT -Wall -c sandbox_futils.c -o sandbox_futils.o gcc libsandbox.o sandbox_futils.o -shared -fPIC -ldl -lc -nostdlib -lgcc -o libsandbox.so gcc -march=i386 -O1 -pipe -D_GNU_SOURCE -DPIC -fPIC -D_REENTRANT -Wall -c sandbox.c -o sandbox.o gcc -march=i386 -O1 -pipe -D_GNU_SOURCE -DPIC -fPIC -D_REENTRANT -Wall sandbox.o sandbox_futils.o getcwd.c -ldl -lc -o sandbox >>> Test phase [not enabled]: sys-apps/portage-2.0.51-r3 touch: cannot touch `.tested': Permission denied !!! ERROR: sys-apps/portage-2.0.51-r3 failed. !!! Function dyn_test, Line 940, Exitcode 1 !!! Failed to 'touch .tested' in /var/tmp/portage/portage-2.0.51-r3 !!! If you need support, post the topmost build error, NOT this status message. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. emerge portage 2. 3. Something is terribly broken in my system. I re-emerged baselayout and then tried to re-emerge portage to try to get past bug #71160. And now portage cannot even emerge itself! I have 2 other gentoo systems and they work just fine. The errors seem to be related to file access rights and/or sandbox. I suspect there is some really old setting or package that causes this, and current ebuilds just don't take into consideration that somebody has still got it. Or they assume the user has managed to read all the ewarns that tell him to do something manually... Please help me! # emerge info Portage 2.0.51-r3 (default-linux/x86/2004.0, gcc-3.3.4, glibc-2.3.3.20040420-r1, 2.4.26-gentoo-r9 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.4.26-gentoo-r9 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) processor Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16 Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59-r5 Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.5-r1 Binutils: sys-devel/binutils-2.15.90.0.1.1-r3 Headers: sys-kernel/linux-headers-2.4.21-r1 Libtools: sys-devel/libtool-1.5.2-r5 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /opt/tomcat/conf /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.1/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs autoconfig ccache distlocks sandbox sfperms userpriv usersandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://trumpetti.atm.tut.fi/gentoo/" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="3dnow 3dnowex X adns alsa apm arts audiofile avi berkdb bitmap-fonts cdr crypt cups dga directfb divx4linux dnd dvd dvdread encode f77 fam flac foomaticdb fortran gdbm gif gnome gphoto2 gpm gtk gtk2 guile imlib java jce joystick jpeg junit justify kde libg++ libwww lua mad matroska mikmod mmx mng motif mozilla mpeg ncurses nptl oggvorbis opengl oss pam pcre pdflib perl pic png postgres python qt quicktime readline samba sdl slang spell ssl svg svga tcltk tcpd theora tiff truetype videos wmf x86 xml xml2 xmms xv xvid zlib"
Turning off userpriv and usersandbox will should allow you to work around the problem.
Check your FS.
Like bug #71160: I got past the problem by using FEATURES="-sandbox"