[distcc] resolution on a configuration file?

[Daniel Kegel]

Donohue, Michael wrote:
> I would like to get my patches considered for inclusion, but they seem 
> to be held up by not having a proper place to configure flags.   I don’t 
> find using the hosts file all that objectionable, since I want to be 
> able to control these on a system wide basis.   This means that everyone 
> who uses the same hosts file, also benefits from other system tuning.

I guess I'm comfortable with the hosts file containing all sorts
of options that aren't really hostnames.   In other words,
when distcc was first written, it seemed as if there were no options
needed, so Martin called the config file 'hosts'.

There's a suggestion in hosts.c:
   TODO: Perhaps entries in the host list that "look like files" (start
     with '/' or '~') should be read in as files?  This could even be
     recursive.
which supports the idea of nonhosts in the hosts file.

Incidentally, that suggestion would fix a minor problem with your new
--localslots option.  While putting that option in the hosts file will work well for
sites with lots of identical workstations, it might not work
well for sites with some weak and some powerful workstations.
Sites which need to vary --localslots on a client by client basis
could include the line
   /etc/distcc/localopts
in the global hosts file, and distcc would read the local options from
that file on startup, without penalizing sites that didn't need local
options.

I don't think we need to implement that right now, but
it's probably something that will be needed eventually.