root/trunk/distributed_compiling.txt

AUTHOR: Cedric de Wijs cedric.de.wijs<at>softhome<dot>net

DATE: 2004-04-09

LICENSE: GNU Public Licence

SYNOPSIS: How to install distcc --a free distributed C/C++ compiler system

DESCRIPTION:
TODO: put some usefull words here

ATTACHMENTS:
The distcc package, available from:
http://distcc.samba.org/ftp/distcc/distcc-2.12.1.tar.bz2 (317,8kB)


PREREQUISITES:
This hint expect you to have two working lfs systems with the same version of gcc, binutils and glibc, and functional networking

HINT:
=================
TABLE OF CONTENTS
=================

1 Introduction
2 Required Files
3 Installation server
4 Installation client
5 Usage
6 Pitfalls
7 Recommended reading

===============
1 Introduction
===============

Compiling sourcecode can take a long time. This hint describes how to install distcc, a tool that can be used to distribute the compiling across multiple machines in a network. 
The machine you sit behind and issue the compile from is the client. 
The machines who are doing the work are the servers.
Every machine can contain both a server and a client

This text is based upon the documentation of distcc, written by Martin Pool

Estimated build time:           0.20 SBU
Estimated required disk space:  5.4 MB

=================
2. REQUIRED FILES
=================
The distcc package, available from:
http://distcc.samba.org/ftp/distcc/distcc-2.12.1.tar.bz2 (317,8kB)

===============
3. Installation
===============
To install the package run the following:

./configure --sysconfdir=/etc &&
make &&
make install
=======================
3. Configuration server
=======================
To make distcc run as a server create a new user. Make sure /tmp is writable by that user:

useradd distcc


To start the daemon use the following command:

nice -n 19 distccd --daemon


To make distcc start at boottime use this script:

cat > /etc/rc.d/init.d/distcc << "EOF"
#!/bin/bash
source /etc/sysconfig/rc
source $rc_functions
case "$1" in
        start)
                echo "Starting distributed compile daemon"
                nice -n 19 /usr/local/bin/distccd --daemon
                ;;
        stop)
                echo "Stopping distributed compile daemon"
                killproc /usr/local/bin/distccd
                ;;
        *)
                echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|reload|restart|status}"
                exit 1
                ;;
esac
EOF
chmod 700 /etc/rc.d/init.d/distcc

And make some symlinks to it:

cd /etc/rc.d/init.d &&
ln -sf ../init.d/distcc ../rc0.d/K00distcc &&
ln -sf ../init.d/distcc ../rc2.d/S99distcc &&
ln -sf ../init.d/distcc ../rc3.d/S99distcc &&
ln -sf ../init.d/distcc ../rc5.d/S99distcc &&
ln -sf ../init.d/distcc ../rc6.d/K00distcc

=======================
4. Configuration client
=======================
To make distcc run as a client run the following:

./configure --sysconfdir=/etc &&
make &&
make install

To let distcc know who the servers are edit the following file:

mkdir ~/.distcc &&
cat > /root/.distcc/hosts << "EOF"
localhost       #your own machine
192.168.0.201   #the first server,
192.168.0.202   #and the second server
EOF

To make sure distcc is found before your real compiler, create some symlinks:

ln -s /usr/local/bin/distcc /bin/c++ &&
ln -s /usr/local/bin/distcc /bin/cc &&
ln -s /usr/local/bin/distcc /bin/g++ &&
ln -s /usr/local/bin/distcc /bin/gcc

========
5. Usage
========
Instead of running the following command:
./configure && make && make install
Use these commands:
./configure && make -j 6 && make install


Every server can handle three clients per CPU unless otherwise configured, so the above comand can fill two servers.
===========
6. Pitfalls
===========
Don't use version 1.12. This version contains a bug causing distccd not to run as user distcc. Older and newer versions should work fine

======================
7. Recommended reading
======================
The documentation included with distcc

The following hints:
parallelcompiling.txt


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
The programmer of this utility:
Martin Pool <mbp@samba.org>

The author of parallelcompiling.txt  
Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@panthera-systems.net> 

CHANGELOG:
2004-04-09 Initial release