[distcc] Monitor programs do not work with Portage/Gentoo Linux

[Martin Pool]

On 17 Jun 2003, "Lisa M." <lisa at thedoh.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-06-17 at 16:19, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> > On Jun 17, 2003, "Lisa M." <lisa at thedoh.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > The solution to this is to use a different envvar (in the patch I
> > > submitted[1] to Gentoo in an ebuild revision) I use $DISTCC_TMPDIR. 

Thankyou for sending the report.

It might first be worth asking: *why* does Portage set TMPDIR, and what
are the consequences of routing around it?

> > However, this patch also breaks distcc's behavior for those who
> > actually have a legitimate reason to set TMPDIR.
> 
> This patch is aimed soley at Gentoo users since their TMPDIR
> settings are unreliable (and even if left blank, distcc will not
> default to /tmp because during compilation Portage assigns a value
> to TMPDIR).

Please, when you're making patches, consider what impact they will
have on people not using Gentoo, or even people who are compiling on
Gentoo but not through ebuild.  (People do sometimes build their own
programs.)

> I'm unaware of any other instances where TMPDIR could be untrusted.  In
> those cases where TMPDIR *is* unreliable, then I believe this patch will
> offer the user a viable alternative through an envvar that is not likely
> to be changed.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'untrusted'.  

Sometimes people have valid reasons for setting TMPDIR - e.g. security
concerns about shared /tmp, or /tmp being too small, or wanting
independent distcc instances for testing.  You shouldn't gratuitously
break it.

-- 
Martin