[distcc] too many SSH connections

[Phil R Lawrence]

Lisa Seelye <lisa at gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Fri, 2003-10-31 at 07:18, Phil R Lawrence wrote:
> > When I try to emerge using distcc over SSH, it keeps logging
> > me back on and off the other box.
>
> [lots snipped]
> 
> You might want to look into adding a passphrased SSH key on your
> volunteer machine, and use Keychain[1] ...

OK.  Did that.  Here are my results for time emerge xlockmore!  Question follows!  :-)

I have a dual Xeon 2.40GH IBM server (Fast!) and a 500 MHz Celeron IBM X20 laptop (Not Fast!).

VOLUNTEERS: me@<Xeon>:/home/me/opt/bin/distccd localhost
# turns into -j1 because of "no jobserver" error  :-(
-j 4  
real    7m7.246s
user    3m22.650s
sys     1m19.670s

VOLUNTEERS: me@<Xeon>:/home/me/opt/bin/distccd localhost
# with -j
real    8m21.787s
user    6m3.500s
sys     1m38.690s

# let's get rid of the dog...
VOLUNTEER: me@<Xeon>:/home/me/opt/bin/distccd
# with -j
real    5m53.935s
user    3m54.610s
sys     1m33.180s

VOLUNTEER: me@<Xeon>:/home/me/opt/bin/distccd
# with -j 3 .. turned into -j1
real    6m37.346s
user    3m22.330s
sys     1m18.050s

So...  I'm thinking distcc may not for me, because right now I only have one machine worth compiling on!  :-)  Might I do better to somehow emerge on my server with the X20 as a target?  How would I do that?  (RH 7.3 server)  Would I have to create a User Mode Linux for Gentoo and do it from in there?

Actually, though, I will soon have a nice P4 desktop up and running again.  That might help, but still it sounds faster to just do all compiling on the server.  I know I am amazed evrytime I compile something for /usr/local on it.  Opinions?

Thanks for any info!
Phil