## Speeding up pkgsrc builds with ccache and distcc Building an important amount of packages with *pkgsrc* can take a very long time. Two helper softwares can speed up operations significantly: [ccache](http://ccache.samba.org/) and [distcc](http://code.google.com/p/distcc/). ### ccache From package's DESCR: *ccache is a compiler cache. It acts as a caching pre-processor to C/C++ compilers, using the -E compiler switch and a hash to detect when a compilation can be satisfied from cache. This often results in a 5 to 10 times speedup in common compilations.* Using *ccache* in *pkgsrc* is very simple, just add the following line to your */etc/mk.conf*: PKGSRC_COMPILER= ccache gcc Declaring *ccache* as a compiler in *mk.conf* will make it a dependency for every package to be built. ### distcc From package's DESCR: *distcc is a program to distribute compilation of C or C++ code across several machines on a network. distcc should always generate the same results as a local compile, is simple to install and use, and is often two or more times faster than a local compile.* We will setup *distcc* with two hosts called hostA and hostB. First, install the software on both machines: # cd /usr/pkgsrc/devel/distcc && make install clean # cp /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/distccd /etc/rc.d Configure some parameters in order to allow hostA and hostB to use each other's *distcc* instances. hostA's IP address is 192.168.1.1, hostB's IP address is 192.168.1.2: hostA$ grep distcc /etc/rc.conf distccd=YES distccd_flags="--allow 192.168.1.0/24 --allow 127.0.0.1 --listen 192.168.1.1 --log-file=/home/distcc/distccd.log" hostB$ grep distcc /etc/rc.conf distccd=YES distccd_flags="--allow 192.168.1.0/24 --allow 127.0.0.1 --listen 192.168.1.2 --log-file=/home/distcc/distccd.log" Instead of sending logs to *syslog*, we will use a custom logfile located in *distcc*'s user home directory: # mkdir /home/distcc && chown distcc /home/distcc We can then fire up *distcc* on both hosts: # /etc/rc.d/distccd start In order to use hostnames instead of their IP addresses, add them to both */etc/hosts*: # tail -2 /etc/hosts 192.168.1.1 hostA 192.168.1.2 hostB And finally tell *pkgsrc* to use *distcc* along with *ccache* by adding these lines to */etc/mk.conf* on both machines: PKGSRC_COMPILER= ccache distcc gcc DISTCC_HOSTS= hostA hostB MAKE_JOBS= 4 Here we define *MAKE_JOBS* to 4 because we are using two single-CPU hosts. The recommended value for *MAKE_JOBS* is *number of CPUs\*2* to avoid idle time. ### Testing To see *distcc* in action, simply watch the */home/distcc/distccd.log* file while you are building a package: $ tail -f /home/distcc/distccd.log distccd[5218] (dcc_job_summary) client: 192.168.1.1:64865 COMPILE_OK exit:0 sig:0 core:0 ret:0 time:175ms gcc lockfile.c distccd[8292] (dcc_job_summary) client: 192.168.1.1:64864 COMPILE_OK exit:0 sig:0 core:0 ret:0 time:222ms gcc counters.c distccd[27779] (dcc_job_summary) client: 192.168.1.1:64881 COMPILE_OK exit:0 sig:0 core:0 ret:0 time:3009ms gcc ccache.c distccd[27779] (dcc_job_summary) client: 192.168.1.1:64863 COMPILE_OK exit:0 sig:0 core:0 ret:0 time:152ms gcc compopt.c