How to report bugs in distcc -*- indented-text -*- If you are having trouble with distcc, please send email to distcc@lists.samba.org. Please don't send mail direct to the author: if you use the list, other people may be able to help you faster and the answers are archived to help others. * The first aim of a bug report is to let the programmer see the failure with their own eyes. If you can't be with them to make it fail in front of them, give them detailed instructions so that they can make it fail for themselves. * In case the first aim doesn't succeed, and the programmer can't see it failing themselves, the second aim of a bug report is to describe what went wrong. Describe everything in detail. State what you saw, and also state what you expected to see. Write down the error messages, especially if they have numbers in. * By all means try to diagnose the fault yourself if you think you can, but if you do, you should still report the symptoms as well. * Write clearly. Say what you mean, and make sure it can't be misinterpreted. * Above all, be precise. A good bug report for distcc should include these details: * What version of distcc you're using, e.g. "2.7.1". If you got it from a distribution package rather than building from source, please say so. * Your platform (e.g. "Red Hat 8.0", "HP-UX 11.11") and compiler "gcc 3.3" * What you're trying to do: e.g. "install distcc", "build Mozilla", "build my own program". * What went wrong: e.g. did you get an error message, did it hang, did it build a program that didn't work, did it not distribute compilation to machines that ought to get it? You'd be surprised how many people don't say what actually happened. * If you have an example of a compiler invocation that failed, quote it, e.g.: distcc gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -D_GNU_SOURCE -I./src \ "-DSYSCONFDIR=\"/etc/\"" -I./lzo -g -O2 -W -Wall -W \ -Wimplicit -Wshadow -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align \ -Wwrite-strings -Waggregate-return -Wstrict-prototypes \ -Wmissing-prototypes -Wnested-externs -o src/clirpc.o \ -c src/clirpc.c * Turn on client and server error logging. On the client, set these environment variables, and try to reproduce the problem: export DISTCC_VERBOSE=1 DISTCC_LOG=/tmp/distcc.log Start the server with the --verbose option. If the problem is intermittent, leave logging enabled and then pull out the lines from the log file when the problem recurs. * If you got an error message on stderr, quote that error exactly. Find the lines in the log files pertaining to the compile, and include all of them in your report, by looking at the process ID in square brackets. If you can't work that out, quote the last few hundred lines leading up to the failure. An error report with all the necessary details is often answered and resolved within two days or less. If you don't include enough information to know what is going wrong it can take much longer.
