--- name: "dpb" section: "1" platform: "openbsd" package: "man" version: "8.0-current-20261101" release: "OpenBSD 8.0-current (2026-11-01)" platforms: ["openbsd"] url: "https://new.carta.tech/dpb" --- # dpb(1) distributed ports builder ## NAME **dpb** – distributed ports builder ## SYNOPSIS **dpb** \[**-acemqRrsUuvx**\] \[**-A** *arch*\] \[**-B** *chroot*\] \[**-b** *logfile*\] \[**-C** *pathlist*\] \[**-D** *PARAM*=*value*\] \[**-F** *m*\] \[**-f** *m*\] \[**-h** *hosts*\] \[**-I** *pathlist*\] \[**-J** *p*\] \[**-j** *n*\] \[**-L** *logdir*\] \[**-l** *lockdir*\] \[**-M** *threshold*\] \[**-P** *pathlist*\] \[**-p** *parallel*\] \[**-S** *logfile*\] \[**-X** *pathlist*\] \[*pathlist* *...*\] ## DESCRIPTION **dpb** is used to build ports on a cluster of machines, or on a single machine with several cores. **dpb** walks the ports tree to figure out dependencies, and starts building ports as soon as it can. **dpb** will run with sensible defaults if used without options. Note, however, that it will produce logs, lock files, packages, and package installations. If run as non-root, **dpb** will warn. The preferred way is to run it as root (and preferably under a chroot, see [bulk(8)](/bulk/8.md) and [proot(1)](/proot/1.md) for example setups). **dpb** will then change its identity to different users as needed. See THE SECURITY MODEL OF DPB for details. **dpb** can be restricted to a subset of the tree by giving it *pathlist* *...* to build as parameters. A *pathlist* is either a [pkgpath(7)](/pkgpath/7.md) to build, or a filename that contains pkgpaths (one per line). *pathlist* parameters can also take the form filename\*scale in order to multiply the weights of all [pkgpath(7)](/pkgpath/7.md) in a file by a given *scale*, or pkgpath=value, in order to set the weight of a given [pkgpath(7)](/pkgpath/7.md) to a specific value. **dpb** supports ‘hot-fixes’: if a particular port errors out, it is possible to fix the problem, remove the corresponding lockfile, and **dpb** will pick it up without needing to be stopped and restarted. In order to build on a cluster, the ports tree itself should be identical on each machine (shared through NFS or copied at start). Some directories must be shared: PACKAGE\_REPOSITORY, DISTDIR, and PLIST\_REPOSITORY. The WRKOBJDIR and LOCKDIR should be local to each machine, and on a high-speed partition. Also note that **dpb**'s logs and locks are managed by the main **dpb** process, which runs locally, and hence those directories do not need to be shared on the cluster. Some log files ("rolling logs") are kept from one run to the run and stored under *${DISTDIR}/build-stats*. On each run, the most recent entries for each pkgpath( see *STATS\_USED*) are used to figure out in which order things should be built. Meanwhile, some more entries are kept around( see *STATS\_BACKLOG*) for potential data analysis over longer periods. Option **-h** *file* is used to specify hosts to use, where *file* may contain lots of information, but can be as simple as a list of hosts to use, one host per line (however, it is recommended to also include a *STARTUP* script). Most filenames will go through some control sequence expansions. For instance, the default logdir location can be specified as *%p/logs/%a*. The following sequences are recognized: - **%a** architecture being used. - **%d** date at start of **dpb**, GMtime, formatted as yyyy-mm-dd@hh:mm:ss. - **%f** fetch distfiles location (DISTDIR). - **%h** short hostname running **dpb**. - **%L** logdir location. - **%p** portsdir location. - **%t** timestamp (number of seconds since January 1 1970) at start of **dpb**. - **%$** Pid of the main **dpb** process . Options are as follows: - **-A** *arch* Build packages for given architecture, selecting relevant hosts from the cluster. By default, the current host's architecture will be used. - **-a** Walk the whole tree and builds all packages (default if no *pathlist* is given). - **-B** *chroot* chroot to *chroot* before building. See [proot(1)](/proot/1.md) for preparing such an environment. - **-b** *logfile* Explicitly prime the heuristics module with a previous build log, so that packages that take a long time to build will happen earlier. The rolling log file under *%f/build-stats/%a* is automatically used. - **-C** *pathlist* Don't clean port working directories after build. Only use simple [pkgpath(7)](/pkgpath/7.md) in the list, as this does not take subpackages and flavors into account. - **-c** Clean port working directory and log before each build. - **-D** *PARAM*=*value* Set defined parameter to value. Known parameters are as follows: - *ALWAYS\_CLEAN* Set to 1 if **dpb** should clean work directories even if the port errored out. - *BUILD\_USER* Default value for *build\_user* if you want to specify it on the command line, and want to ensure even the small "discover PORTSDIR" activity at the beginning of **dpb** is not run as root. - *COLOR* Set to 1 to have the normal display in color. - *CONNECTION\_TIMEOUT* Connection timeout for ssh. Defaults to 10 seconds (but ssh will retry 3 times). - *CONTROL* Let **dpb** create a unix socket of the given name for external control. Defaults to ‘%L/control-%h-%$’. If no socket is wanted, explicitly set *CONTROL* to empty. - *DISPLAY\_TIMEOUT* Display timeout (in seconds) while waiting for jobs to finish, so that the display is updated even if jobs didn't finish. Defaults to 10 seconds. - *DONT\_BUILD\_ONCE* By default, **dpb** will use the BUILD\_ONCE optimization( see [bsd.port.mk(5)](/bsd.port.mk/5.md)) if run with **-a**: pseudo-flavors that disable subpackages and are not necessary for bootstrap will be disabled, so that the same port is built once, as far as possible. This flag disables that optimization, which might be desirable if you want to build a small subset of packages which would pull in the kitchen sink otherwise. - *DONT\_CLEAN\_LOCKS* By default, **dpb** will clean old locks from dpb running on the same host that no longer exist, provided they didn't end in error. This is usually the right thing to do after a crash, or after killing dpb abruptly. Sometimes, one may want manual control over which locks to remove. - *FETCH\_JOBS* Alternate way to specify the number of fetch jobs. - *FETCH\_TIMEOUT* Timeout (in seconds) after which fetches that don't show any progress will be killed. This can be instead set in *DEFAULT* or *localhost* as the ‘fetch\_timeout’ property. - *FETCH\_CMD* Override for the default *FETCH\_CMD* coming from ports. This might be useful because fetching isn't chroot'd and is run as ${FETCH\_USER}. - *FETCH\_USER* User for all fetch activities if possible (defaults to *\_pfetch*). - *FTP\_ONLY* Don't fetch distfiles/don't build packages that are not allowed for ftp. - *HISTORY\_ONLY* Don't fetch or build anything. Only run **dpb** to figure out old distfiles and update *%f/history*. - *LISTING\_EXTRA* Alternate way to specify **-e**. - *LOCKDIR* Alternate way to specify the locking directory. - *LOGDIR* Alternate way to specify the logging directory. - *LOG\_USER* User for all log files if possible (defaults to *build\_user*). - *MIRROR* Applicable to fetch modes. If 0, will only fetch normal DISTFILES( default for **dpb** **-f**). If 1, will also fetch extra SUPDISTFILES( default for **dpb** **-F**). - *NEVER\_CLEAN* If 1, **dpb** will never clean any work directory after build. - *NO\_BUILD\_STATS* Disable reading/saving of default build stats under *${DISTDIR}/build-stats/${ARCH}*. - *NO\_CHECKSUM* Do not run *checksum* again for files already fetched. - *NO\_CURSOR* Make the terminal cursor invisible if possible. Avoids flickering on slow graphics cards. - *NO\_HISTORY* Do not update the distfiles history. For instance, if **dpb** is run a second time after a problem during the first run. - *NO\_QUICK\_SCAN* Disable the quick scan default heuristic, where full bulks will start by scanning the most prominent ports in former builds. - *PORT\_USER* User that can write to the ports tree. Not really used for anything yet. - *RECORD* Define a file which will save all terminal output. Mostly useful for presentations, as a way to save **dpb** output and replay it later at a faster rate. Defaults to *%L/term-report.log*, can be set to nothing to disable. - *STARTUP* Define a start-up script on the command-line, override any host file contents. - *STATS\_BACKLOG* Max number of stats (per individual pkgpath) to save in the rolling log file( defaults to 25). - *STATS\_USED* Clamp number of stats (per individual pkgpath) used for computing build order( defaults to 10). - *STUCK\_TIMEOUT* Timeout (in seconds \* speed factor) after which tasks that don't show any progress will be killed. This can be instead set on a per-core basis as the ‘stuck’ property. Note that this will always be divided by the core's speed factor. - *SYSLOG* Make **dpb** call [syslog(3)](/syslog/3.md) on every task start/end while creating packages. This does produce lots of messages, it is intended to route the logging on another machine, while tracking down panics and other hangs. - *WANTSIZE* Alternate way to specify **-s**. - **-e** The listing job is extra and won't be given back to the pool when it's finished. - **-F** *m* Fetch-only mode, for mirroring hosts. Do not build any package but fetch everything, disregarding BROKEN and ONLY\_FOR\_ARCHS information. Create *m* localhost jobs for fetching files. - **-f** *m* Create *m* jobs for fetching files. Those are separate from the build jobs, since they don't consume cpu, and they run on the localhost. Defaults to 2. Can be set to 0 to bypass fetching jobs entirely, and reduce **dpb** memory footprint by a lot. - **-h** *hosts* File with hosts to use for building. One host per line, plus properties, such as: ``` espie@aeryn jobs=4 arch=i386 ``` Lines starting with a known variable name such as ``` STARTUP=path ``` or ``` FETCH_JOBS=5 ``` can also be set inside a configuration file, to reduce the number of options you must pass on the command line. The special hostname *DEFAULT* can be used to preset defaults. It should be used at the start of the file. Use *localhost* to specify the local machine. **dpb** will special-case it and not use [ssh(1)](/ssh/1.md) to connect. Properties are as follows: - always\_clean=n Set to 0 or 1 on per-host basis. See *ALWAYS\_CLEAN* parameter. - arch=value Architecture of the concerned host. (there should be a startup task to check consistency, but currently this has to be set manually on heterogeneous networks.) - build\_user=user Use *user* for non root jobs if possible (defaults to [whoami(1)](/whoami/1.md) value). - chroot=dir Chroot to *dir* before building. - fetch\_timeout=s Timeout (in seconds) after which fetches that don't show any progress will be killed. Only makes sense for *DEFAULT* or *localhost*. - jobs=n Number of jobs to run on that host, defaults to hw.ncpuonline. - junk=n Junk unused packages each n steps. See **-J** option. - memory=thr Build everything below that wrkdir threshold with USE\_MFS=‘Yes’, assuming the ports tree has been configured so that WRKOBJDIR\_MFS points to a memory filesystem. *thr* is the sum, in KBytes, of ports that will be allowed to build in memory. **dpb** understands suffixes, such as **-M** *2G* or **-M** *500M*. Note that you should always allow for some margin, as **dpb** makes its decision based on the size information collected during previous builds, so in cases of significant updates, the work directory size will usually grow. - nochecksum=0/1 Defaults to 1. During the junk stage, run [pkg\_delete(1)](/pkg_delete/1.md) with the **-q** (no checksum) option. - parallel=p Run big ports on several cores. See **-p** option. - parallel2=p Run largest ports on many cores. Defaults to the same value as the parallel option, but can be increased for, say, chromium. - repair=0/1 Defaults to 1. Run pkg\_add(1) with the repair option. This is useful on some bulk machines which tend to crash a lot, leaving */var/db/pkg* in a weird state. - sf=n Speed factor. An estimate of that machine's speed with that number of jobs compared to other machines in the same network. Works better with small values, in the range of 1..50. The machine (or machines) with the highest speed factor will get access to all jobs, whereas other machines will be clamped to stuff which does not take too long. Requires previous build information to be effective. Defaults to 1. - small=s Small threshold (in seconds \* sf): ports known to build under that duration are deemed to be small, so **dpb** won't bother calling fine-grained steps for patch/configure/fake. It will go straight to build and package instead. Defaults to 120 seconds. - squiggles=n Number of squiggles on this host (see THE SQUIGGLE HEURISTICS below). Defaults to 1 squiggle for hosts with 4 jobs or more, 0.7 for hosts with more than 1 job, 0 for single job hosts. - stuck=s Stuck timeout (in seconds \* sf) after which tasks which show no progress will get killed. - timeout=s Defines a specific connection timeout for ssh to that host. There are no fine-grained options to control [ssh(1)](/ssh/1.md) options, as those can be specified through virtual host declarations in [ssh\_config(5)](/ssh_config/5.md). - **-I** *pathlist* List of [pkgpath(7)](/pkgpath/7.md) to install, on the local box. This will also add them to the list of things to build. - **-J** *p* Override value for the “junk” property. Delete unneeded installed packages during the build. Each *prepare* stage is followed by a *show-prepare-results* stage. After every *p* new dependencies, it will be followed by a *junk* stage which uses [pkg\_delete(1)](/pkg_delete/1.md) with the **-aXI** options to delete automatically installed packages that are currently not needed. **dpb** keeps track of list of dependencies on a given host, by storing each dependency list in the lockfile corresponding to the package being built. To avoid a race condition between the *depends* and *junk* stages, **dpb** allows only one job on a given host to be in the *depends* ... *junk* stages at one time, by using a per-host lock. Defaults to *150*. Can be disabled by setting to *0*. Some ports, most notably cmake-based, have an annoying dependency handling bug: they compute their makefile dependencies based on all include files present, not just the ones that are actually enabled. Those ports' build may be broken by a *junk* phase that removes some unused includes that were added as makefile prerequisites. Those ports should be annotated with DPB\_PROPERTIES = nojunk until that bug is fixed: while a port with the ‘nojunk’ property is building, *junk* will be postponed. Those ports will be marked with a ‘!’ in the display, to make it more obvious why junk seems to be ineffective. Note that the ‘nojunk’ property is still active for ports in error, in the belief that trivial fixes can be made that will allow the port build to finish. - **-j** *n* Number of jobs to run on a single host (defaults to hw.ncpuonline). - **-L** *logdir* Choose a log directory.( Defaults to *%p/logs/%a*). - **-l** *lockdir* Choose a lock directory.( Defaults to *%L/locks*). Override to keep local, as locks don't really like NFS. - **-M** *threshold* Build ports below the memory threshold under a memory filesystem, as configured through WRKOBJDIR\_MFS( see [bsd.port.mk(5)](/bsd.port.mk/5.md)). *threshold* is the sum, in KBytes, of ports allowed to build there. - **-m** Force tty-style reporting. - **-P** *pathlist* Read list of [pkgpath(7)](/pkgpath/7.md) from file. - **-p** *parallel* Override value for the “parallel” property. Run big jobs on several cores on the same host, by using MAKE\_JOBS=k. Once such a job has started, **dpb** will not start new jobs on the same host until the big job has stolen enough cores from other finishing jobs. Only big ports which are safe for parallel building (annotated with DPB\_PROPERTIES = parallel in their Makefile) will be affected. It is advisable to set k to an integral fraction of the number of cores available on a given host. *parameter* can be an integer, or of the form ‘/n’, in which case, **dpb** will set k to a fraction of the total number of jobs on the machine, but never below 2. Defaults to ‘/2’. - **-q** Don't quit while errors/locks are around. - **-R** Rebuild existing packages based on discrepancies between the package signature and what the port says it should be. Concretely, use to run a partial bulk build after some library change. Note that **-R** won't always work, as rebuilding a package when another version is already installed is not supported. Building in a chroot is strongly recommended. - **-r** Random build order. Disregard any kind of smart heuristics. Useful to try to find missing build dependencies. - **-S** *logfile* Read *logfile* as an initial workdir size log. - **-s** Compute workdir sizes before cleaning up, and stash them in log file *%L/size.log*. This will also maintain a rolling log of build sizes under *%f/build-stats/%a-size*. In order to save time, **dpb** will actually not always compute new sizes for known directories, but mostly for new ones, or when the package name changes. - **-U** Insist on updating existing packages during dependency solving, even if the new package apparently didn't change. - **-u** Update existing packages during dependency solving. Can be used to run a bulk-build on a machine with installed packages, but might break a bit, since some packages only build on a clean machine right now. - **-X** *pathlist* Read a list of [pkgpath(7)](/pkgpath/7.md) from file, and pass them along in the junk phase: those are packages that should stay on the machine if they've been installed by a dependency. Can be used to avoid endlessly removing/reinstalling the most common packages, e.g., *devel/gmake*. - **-x** No tty report, only report really important things, like hosts going down and coming back up, build errors, or builds not progressing. **dpb** figures out in which order to build things on the fly, and constantly displays information relative to what's currently building. There's a list of what is currently running, one line per job. Those jobs are ordered in strict chronological order, which means that long running builds will tend to percolate to the top of the list. Normal jobs look like this: ``` www/mozilla-firefox(build) [9452] 41% unchanged for 92 seconds ``` This contains: - an optional ‘~’ squiggle marker (see below), - the pkgpath being built, - the step currently being run, - an optional ‘!’ for ports with the ‘nojunk’ property. - an optional ‘+’ for ports built in memory. - the pid running that task (note that this is always a pid on the host running dpb: for distributed builds, it will be an [ssh(1)](/ssh/1.md) to another machine), - the current size of the log file (displayed as a percentage if previous build statistics are available). - and a possible notice that things might be stuck when the log file doesn't change for long periods. And fetch jobs look like this: ``` in case of failure during clean-up). Normal list of tasks is: *depends* *prepare* *fetch* *patch* *configure* *build* *fake* *package* *clean*. At the end of each job, **dpb** rechecks the locks directory for existing lockfiles. If some locks have vanished, it will put the corresponding paths back in the queue and attempt another build. This eases manual repairs: if a package does not build, the user can look at the log, go to the port directory, fix the problem, and then remove the lock. **dpb** will pick up the ball and keep building without interruption. It is perfectly safe to run several **dpb** in parallel on the same machine. This is not optimal, since each **dpb** ignores the others, and only uses the lock info to avoid the other's current work, but it can be handy: in an emergency, one can start a second **dpb** to obtain a specific package right now, in parallel with the original **dpb**. Note that **dpb** is very careful not to run two builds from the same pkgpath at the same time, even on different machines: in some cases, MULTI\_PACKAGES and FLAVOR combinations may lead to the same package being built simultaneously, and since the package repository is shared, this can easily lead to trouble. Handling of shared log files and history is also done very carefully by systematically appending to files or using atomic mv operations. For obvious reasons, this won't work as well with masters running on distinct machines sharing their logs through NFS. ### BUILD CYCLES There are some various interdependencies in package builds that can be hard to trace in case something goes wrong. Refer to *summary.log* to fix those specific issues. ## AFFINITY **dpb** now maintains a list of pkgpath-per-host that are currently building in the *affinity* directory of its log directory, along with building-in-memory status. That information is only wiped out when a given build finishes successfully. Otherwise **dpb** will try to restart that build on the same host, which can be handy if you interrupt **dpb** while it is building a large port, or if you remove a lock after fixing a problem. ## TAGS FOR EXCLUSIVE BUILDS Back when we had kde3 and kde4, they couldn't be built simultaneously, and a single host had to be exclusively building kde3 or kde4 ports at a given moment. Conflicting ports had been annotated with DPB\_PROPERTIES=*tag:kde3*, DPB\_PROPERTIES=*tag:kde4* respectively. More generally, with DPB\_PROPERTIES=*tag:A*, DPB\_PROPERTIES=*tag:B*, **dpb** will keep track of tags. For instance, if host *X* is building ports tagged with *A*, then any port with tag *B* will be prevented from building on *X* until the next *junk* phase. This heavily relies on the *junk* stage to clean-up hosts periodically, and it can even forcibly provoke a *junk* stage even if junk=0. This ‘force-junk’ stage is actually implemented as a pseudo path called *junk-proxy*, which does only junk. In order for builds to proceed gracefully, machines should start in a clean slate, without any of the problematic ports installed. As a special-case, failing ports with a tag will not interfere with clean-up, so that hosts do not get locked down to a specific tag. This also means that their dependencies may vanish before human intervention addresses the problem. This is supposed to be an exceptional hack, helpful while porters figure out how to remove the deadlock. ## EXTERNAL CONTROL By default( see *CONTROL*), **dpb** will create a Unix socket at *%L/control-%h-%$*, only accessible by *LOG\_USER*, that can accept a few commands, e.g., usable as nc -U path Current commands are as follows: - **addhost** *hostline* Add a new host - **addpath** *fullpkgpath* *...* Add fullpkgpath to scan - **bye** close the socket connection. - **dontclean** *pkgpath* *...* Add new pkgpath to list of paths that should not be cleaned after build - **help** Self explanatory - **info** *cores* Debug info for cores (to be extended to other data) - **rescan** Force **dpb** to rescan all ignored paths (for various errors, including bogus dependencies) - **stats** Show the current stats line - **status** *fullpkgpath* *...* Show the current status of fullpkgpath, whether it's built, installable, ready to build, to build later, along with current dependencies if applicable. - **stub** *fullpkgpath* *...* Stub out *fullpkgpath* and unlock it if needed. - **wipe** *fullpkgpath* *...* Wipe out an existing lock: clean up the corresponding *fullpkgpath* on the appropriate host, then remove all lock and affinity info pertaining to the port. - **wipe-all** Wipe out all existing packages with an error state. This operates like the wipe control. - **wipehost** *hostname* *...* Remove all information relevant to a given host from **dpb**, including running jobs, locks, and affinity information. ## SHUTTING DOWN GRACEFULLY **dpb** periodically checks for a file named *stop* in its log directory. If this file exists, then it won't start new jobs, and shutdown when the current jobs are finished unless **-q**. **dpb** also checks for files named *stop-\* in its log directory. If such a file exists, then it won't start new jobs on the corresponding machine. ## FILES Apart from producing packages, **dpb** may create temporary files as *${FULLDISTDIR}/${DISTFILE}.part*. In fetch mode( **-f** and **-F**), **dpb** populates *${DISTDIR}/by\_cipher/sha256* with links. It also uses *${DISTDIR}/distinfo* and *${DISTDIR}/history* as a ‘permanent log’: - distinfo cache of distfiles checksum. Contains all [sha256(1)](/sha256/1.md) checksums of known files under *${DISTDIR}*. Fetching uses this to avoid re-checksumming known files. - history Log of old files under distinfo. After successfully scanning a full ports tree( **dpb** **-a**), the fetch engine knows precisely which files are needed by the build (and their checksums). Anything that is - recorded in distinfo but unneeded - recorded in distinfo but with the wrong checksum - not recorded in distinfo, but not needed will be entered at the end of history as a line: ts SHA256 (file) = value with *ts* a timestamp from Unix epoch. When cleaning up old files, with a tool such as [clean-old-distfiles(1)](/clean-old-distfiles/1.md), it is vital to check both the checksum and the file name: since mirroring stores permanent links under *by\_cipher*, files which are still needed will appear in history under their old checksums, as an indication the link should be removed, but possibly not the file itself. If *${DISTDIR}* ever becomes corrupted, removing *${DISTDIR}/distinfo* will force **dpb** into checking all files again. All those files belong to the *FETCH\_USER* if it is defined. They should be readable for the *build\_user*. **dpb** also records rolling build statistics under *${DISTDIR}/build-stats/${ARCH}*, and uses them automatically( see *STATS\_BACKLOG* and *STATS\_USED*) in the absence of **-b** *logfile*. That file belongs to the *LOG\_USER* if it is defined. If **-s** is used, size information for successful builds will be recorded under *${DISTDIR}/build-stats/${ARCH}-size*( by default, location adjustable with **-S** *sizelog*). This is then reused for the mfs threshold option. That file also belongs to the *LOG\_USER* if it is defined. **dpb** also maintains a list of pkgpath frequencies *${DISTDIR}/build-stats/${ARCH}-dependencies*, filled at end of LISTING if **-a**. This list will be automatically reused when restarting a build: a quick LISTING of the most important dependencies will happen before the general LISTING, in order to prime further LISTING steps with most common ports first. **dpb** will also create a large number of log files under *${PORTSDIR}/logs/${ARCH}*, which will belong to *LOG\_USER* if it is defined: - *affinity/* Affinity information. One file per full pkgpath, with slash replaced by dots like so: *affinity/lang.ghc,-main*. - *affinity.log* On startup **dpb** reads existing affinity information, and records it in that log, together with its pid. This log just exists to verify, along with *engine.log*, whether correct affinity was heeded. - *awaiting-locks.log* This is purely for gathering performance statistics, about how much lock contention happened around pkg\_add(1) and [pkg\_delete(1)](/pkg_delete/1.md) usage. Plotting cumulated time may help in fine-tuning squiggles parameters. - *build.log* Actual build log. Each line summarizes build of a single pkgpath, as: ‘pkgpath host time logsize (detailed timing)\[!\]’ where time is the actual build time in seconds, host is the machine name where this occurred, logsize is the corresponding log file size, and a ! is appended in case the build didn't succeed. The detailed timing info gives a run-down of the build, with clean, fetch, prepare, patch (actually extract+patch), configure, build, fake, package, clean detailed timing info. Note that the actual build time starts at ‘extract’ and finishes at ‘package’. - *built-packages.log* The actual list of fullpkgname.tgz as they get built. - *cpu-concurrency.log* Shows the actual concurrency achieved as a result of job starvation / parallel handling. Only gets a new line when the value changes: pid timestamp jobs - *debug.log* contains various information related to the main engine spinning (RTFS, haven't figured that one yet) along with the more useful warning and die traces that happen when something wrong occurs. Especially useful for the warning messages that tend to be overwritten by subsequent displays. Will also contain error messages pertaining to failure at parsing existing lock files. - *dist/\.log* Log of the [ftp(1)](/ftp/1.md) process(es) that attempted to fetch the distfile. - *control-%h-%$* Default name for the external control socket. - *dump.log* A long log file generated at the end of build that yields any information pertinent to ports still in the ‘to build’ and the ‘built’ queues. See also *summary.log* for an expurged version of same. - *engine.log* Build engine log. Each line corresponds to a state change for a pkgpath and starts with the pid of **dpb**, plus a timestamp of the log entry. - ^ pkgpath temporarily put aside, because a job is running in the same directory. - ! pkgpath ignored, either directly, or indirectly because a dependency was ignored. End of the line states reason why ignored. - A affinity mismatch: path considered for build, but not the right host, followed by the affinity information. - B pkgpath built / distfile found. - C forcible clean-up before building a port with a kde tag. - E error in build or fetch. - F distfile queued for download. - H package still not found due to nfs on this run. - I pkgpath can be installed. - J job to build pkgpath started. Also records the host used for the build. - K kde mismatch, no build until host has been cleaned up. - L job did not start, existing lock detected. - N job did not finish. The host may have gone down. - P built package is no longer required for anything. - Q pkgpath queued as buildable whenever a slot is free. - T pkgpath to build / distfile to download. - V pkgpath put back in the buildable queue, after job that was running in the same directory returned. - W only happens when the external control **wipe** command is used: pkgpath will be cleaned up, next log entry will be ‘N’ since the job did not finish and is ready to restart. - X only happens when rescanning after an error. The engine temporarily locks paths that are incomplete (detained). These will be kept in a separate list for later examination until the end of the new scan. - x only happens when rescanning after an error. Releases a path for building after the new scan is finished. - Y affinity mismatch, but job will start on the wrong host anyways, as the queue contains no other buildable path. The engine is no longer run after each package build event because of performance considerations, so the ‘Q’ and ‘I’ changes may be delayed by a few ‘B’. - *equiv.log* Lists of equivalent pkgpaths for the build, when default flavors and default subpackages have been resolved. - *fetch/bad.log* List of URLs that did not lead to a correct distfile, either because they were not responding, or because of incorrect checksums. - *fetch/good.log* List of URLs that fetched correctly, along with timing statistics. - *fetch/manually.log* List of pkgpaths that require manual intervention, in human-readable form. - *\.sig.log* Complete library signature of the host. - *init.\.log* Captured output of the initialization job for each host. - *junk.log* Option **-J** counts the number of dependencies directly added to decide when to run **pkg\_delete** **-a**. This file sums up how many ports were built, and how many ports had dependencies each time **dpb** decides to junk. - *locks/* Directory where locks are created. There are three types of locks: - pkgpath locks for building, where the slash in a pkgpath is replaced with a dot like so: *locks/devel.make* to flatten the structure. - distfile locks for fetching, using the distfile name without the path like so: *locks/distfile.dist*. - host locks for dependency handling and junking, like so: *locks/host:hostname*. - *packages/pkgname.log* one file or symlink per pkgname. - *paths/some/path.log* one file or symlink per pkgpath. - *performance.log* Some parts of **dpb** are computationally intensive, such as the engine runs to determine new stuff that can be built, and the actual display reports. Both those activities are rate-limited, so that **dpb** doesn't run its engine at each new package build, and doesn't update its display every time there is a phase change. Lines tagged with ‘ENG’ correspond to the engine; lines tagged with ‘REP’ correspond to the display reports. Lines ending with a dash ‘-’ correspond to new activity that didn't trigger a computation. Other lines will feature a plus ‘+’ for normal runs, or an exclamation point ‘’! for forced runs, followed by two numbers: the next timestamp at which we'll be allowed to run, and a measure of how much time it took to run this pass. That information is mostly relevant while **dpb** is building lots of small packages very quickly. - *signature.log* Discrepancies between hosts that prevent them from starting up. - *size.log* Size of work directory at the end of each build, built only with **-s**. - *stats.log* Simple log of the B=... line summaries. Mostly useful for making plots and tweaking performance. - *stop* Not a logfile at all, but a file created by the user to stop **dpb** creating new jobs. - *stop-\* Not a logfile at all, but created by the user to stop hostname creating new jobs. - *summary.log* A summary file generated at end of build that lists packages not built or not installable, along with a reason for it. This summarizes packages not built because of existing locks, because of errors, but also because they depend on something that was not built. In that last case, *summary.log* contains a chain of dependencies leading to the problematic package, or in case of build cycles, stopping at the first loop. - *term-report.log* Saves all terminal output, so that it can be replayed at hi speed with [dpb-replay(1)](/dpb-replay/1.md). - *vars.log* Logs the directories that were walked in the ports tree for dependency information, including the path to a dependency that triggered this particular step. ## DIAGNOSTICS - Waiting for hosts to finish STARTUP... Displayed on the console while **dpb** is setting up hosts, getting essential data from the ports tree, running a *STARTUP* script, collecting base library signatures. - stuck on \ Display on the console when **dpb** detects a "frozen" port has happened outside of **dpb**'s purview, namely because the ports tree itself has that specific port locked without **dpb**'s knowledge. See [bsd.port.mk(5)](/bsd.port.mk/5.md), [portlock(1)](/portlock/1.md). - (Junk lock obtained for \ at \) - (Junk lock released for \ at \) Printed in a *paths/pkgpath.log* file when attempting to get a ‘junk lock’. On a given host, all dependency operations are serialized. The dependency computation itself is handled by the main **dpb** process, which needs to know exactly which dependencies are used at a given point, so that *junk* can clean up the host correctly. In particular, *junk* will not clean up dependencies already scheduled for installation. Ports that do not obtain the lock on first try are put to sleep. - Received IO Printed in a *paths/pkgpath.log* file when woken up before trying attempting to obtain a *junk* lock again... - Woken up \ Printed in a *paths/pkgpath.log* when waking another task by sending it SIGIO, so that it may attempt to obtain the junk lock again. - (Junk lock failure for \ at \) All ports sleeping for a *junk* lock are woken at the same time, so only one of them will obtain the lock, and the others will fail and be put to sleep again. - Short-cut: depends already handled by \ Printed in a *paths/pkgpath.log* when a port wakes up after others that ran pkg\_add(1). As **dpb** maintains dependencies for a given host globally, it coalesces depends lists together. - Don't run junk because nojunk in \ Printed in a *paths/pkgpath.log* while evaluating whether to run *junk*. Normally, *junk* happens at regular intervals, but ports marked ‘nojunk’ will delay that. **dpb** still keeps track of attempted junks. - Still tainted: \ A host may have a tag that prevents building differently tagged ports. This will be cleansed by *junk* eventually. This prints in *path/pkgpath.log* to indicate whether this particular *junk* will keep the host tainted with a tag or not. - Forced junk, retainting: \ Printed at end of *prepare-results*, when an eventual junk was run even though some ports still hold a tag. - Can't run junk because of lock on \ *junk* can't happen because *fullpkgpath* is locked and is marked ‘nojunk’. - Avoided depends for \ As dependencies are handled globally per-host, some ports can avoid pkg\_add(1) altogether because another port already installed the correct dependencies. - SPINNING ON MAIN Printed in *debug.log*, this is an actual bug: the engine said it can build, there are cores available, but **dpb** can't start a new build job. - SPINNING ON FETCH Printed in *debug.log*, this is an actual bug: the engine said it can fetch, there are fetching cores available, but **dpb** can't start a new fetch job. - KILLED: \ stuck at \ Printed in *path/pkgpath.log* when a port exceeds its timeout. - !: \ tried and didn't get it Printed in *engine.log* Scanning the port didn't give us useful information. See *vars.log* for gory details. ## BUGS AND LIMITATIONS **dpb** performs best with lots of paths to build. When just used to build a few ports, there's a high risk of starvation as there are bottlenecks in parts of the tree. Fetch jobs don't deal with checksum changes yet: if a fetch fails because of a wrong checksum, if you update the distinfo file and remove the lock, **dpb** won't pick it up. Note that **dpb** does not manage installed packages in any intelligent way, it will just call pkg\_add(1) during its depend stage to install its dependencies. With **-u**, it will call pkg\_add -r. With **-U**, it will call pkg\_add -r -D installed, but there is nothing else going on. This is especially true when using **-R**, ensure the machine is clean of possibly older packages first, or run **dpb** with **-U**. In particular **-R** and **-J** together may lead to strange issues. On heterogeneous networks, calibration of build info and choice of speed factors is not perfect, and somewhat a dark art. Using distinct speed factors on a build log that comes from a single machine works fine, but using the build info coming from several machines does not work all that well. **dpb** should check */usr/include* and */usr/X11R6/include* for consistency, but it doesn't. When a host fails consistency check, there is not yet a way to re-add it after fixing the problem. You have to stop **dpb**, cleanup and restart. The default limits in *login.conf* are too small for bulk builds on any kind of parallel machines. Bump number of processes, file descriptors, and memory. Even though **dpb** tries really hard to check heterogeneous networks for sanity (checking shared libraries and .la files), it is still dependent on the user to make sure all the hosts build ports the same way. Make sure your NFS setup is consistent. The ports dir itself should be exported or synchronized. Distfiles, the package repository, and the plist repository should be exported, but WRKOBJDIR should not be on NFS unless you have absolutely no choice, or if you exhibit deep masochistic tendencies. Pay particular attention to discrepancies in */etc/mk.conf*. Also, **dpb** connects to external hosts through [ssh(1)](/ssh/1.md), relying on [ssh\_config(5)](/ssh_config/5.md) for any special cases. When fetching distfiles, **dpb** may freeze and spin in a tight loop while the last distfiles are being fetched. This is definitely a bug, which has been around for quite some time, which is a bit difficult to reproduce, and hasn't been fixed yet. So if **dpb** stops updating its display right around the end of fetch, you've hit the bug. Just kill **dpb** and restart it. ## SEE ALSO [clean-old-distfiles(1)](/clean-old-distfiles/1.md), [dpb-replay(1)](/dpb-replay/1.md), [proot(1)](/proot/1.md), [pkgpath(7)](/pkgpath/7.md), [bulk(8)](/bulk/8.md) ## HISTORY The original **dpb** command was written by Nikolay Sturm. This version is a complete rewrite from scratch using all the stuff we learnt over the years to make it better. ## AUTHORS Marc Espie ⟨*espie@openbsd.org*⟩