problems fetching lang/gcc*: random?

[Fernan Aguero]

+----[ Gerald Pfeifer <gerald at pfeifer.com> (19.Mar.2005 18:29):
|

Dear Gerald,
 
| On Thu, 17 Mar 2005, Fernan Aguero wrote:
| > I'm having a weird problem trying to fetch lang/gcc* ports
| > using the ports system.
| 
| I don't see how the problem you are experiencing should be related
| to these specific ports per se...

I don't know either, but at least now I know a little bit
more ...

| > This does not happen with other ports (at least not with the
| > ones I tested, and with the latest gnome upgrade, I've been
| > fetching lots of them), so I don't believe
| > the cause to be my network connectivity or fetch(1). This is
| > the first reason for this weirdness.
| 
| ...but perhaps it might be related to the specific servers you are
| using when downloading the distfiles for these ports?

it might, since I have RANDOMIZE_MASTER_SITES=yes in my /etc/make.conf

| > In all cases this is as far as I get:
| > 
| > pi# pwd
| > /usr/ports/lang/gcc34
| > pi# make fetch
| > Making GCC 3.4.4 for FreeBSD 4.11 target=i386-portbld-freebsd4.11
| > => gcc-core-3.4-20050311.tar.bz2 doesn't seem to exist in /usr/ports/distfiles/.
| > 
| > at the same time CPU usage raises considerably and 75-80% of
| > this corresponds to a process named random, which ps(1) shows
| > as /usr/games/random. As soon as I Ctrl-C and quit the
| > fetch, this process disappears and CPU usage return to
| > normal levels. This is the second reason I found this weird.
| > 
| > I'm completely intrigued by this. Anyone can reproduce it,
| > or better yet have an idea of what is going on?
| 
| Ah, wait, this might be a very useful piece of information and indeed
| triggers at least one idea: try renaming /usr/games/random, run rehash,
| and then give "make fetch" another try.  Does that make any difference?
|
| Gerald
| 
| PS: Please keep me Cc:ed on this thread.
|
+----]

yes, renaming /usr/games/random did it. No need to rehash.
Now the distfiles are being downloaded.

Still I'm intrigued. Why this doesn't happen with other
ports?

Why /usr/games/random? Well, seems like it's used by
bsd.port.mk when you define RANDOMIZE_MASTER_SITES. In this
case, the master sites list is piped to '| random -w -f -'.

The raise in the CPU usage makes me think that the list
might be monstrous. However, I've run a 'make fetch' 
overnight once and it never got to fetch anything, so it
seems like it never finished. 

Of course, the list in MASTER_SITE_GCC is not that big, so
it should be something else. But that something seems to be in
the gcc* ports.

Any ideas anyone?

Fernan