[distcc] Multiple people running distcc at once, using one DISTCC_DIR

Jake McGuire jake at boom.net
Tue Sep 21 19:43:48 GMT 2004


File locking over NFS is a complex operation, much more so than on a 
local disk, and distcc can do a whole lot of it.  Depending on the 
network and the load on the cluster, I'd not be surprised if the file 
locking took more time than actually distributing the .i file and 
getting back the .o file.

Using a hardware loadbalancer seems like the most robust solution, but 
I've got no idea how much those cost.

-jake

On Sep 21, 2004, at 12:34 PM, Victor Norman wrote:

> Dan,
>
> I remember reading that caveat.  But, I'd like to know more: Why 
> doesn't having
> DISTCC_DIR on NFS work well?  Are there known problems with file 
> locking and
> NFS?  Other reasons?  Problems that I could fix with some work?
>
> I'm not giving up so easily... :-)
>
> Vic
>
>
>
> --- Daniel Kegel <dank at kegel.com> wrote:
>
>> Victor Norman wrote:
>>> --- Daniel Kegel <dank at kegel.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I don't think you should be sharing a .distcc directory between
>>>> multiple users.  It's not a common configuration, and there are
>>>> sure to be problems.
>>>
>>> Does "the community" agree?  I thought this was the recommended 
>>> setup.
>>
>> http://distcc.samba.org/faq.html#monitor-nfs says
>> "Having DISTCC_DIR on NFS doesn't work well at the moment.
>> Please set DISTCC_DIR to a local directory instead."
>>
>>> If I don't share a common .distcc directory then how do I solve my
>> worst-case
>>> scenario: 15 developers suddenly have to compile the entire tree.  
>>> They all
>> put
>>> only the best hosts into their host files (because, after all, they 
>>> each
>> want a
>>> really fast compile), and they all start up their compilation.  The 
>>> result
>> is a
>>> bunch of blocked distcc tcp connects to machines with long tcp 
>>> "listen"
>> queues,
>>> and ultimately, very slow compiles...
>>
>> Easy.  Give up on the idea of having fast and slow machines in the 
>> cluster.
>> Toss out all the slow ones.  Treat all the remaining machines as 
>> identical.
>> Randomization then does the trick for you.
>> - Dan
>>
>
>
>
> 		
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