distcc User Manual: The distccd Server

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## 4. The distccd Server

The distccd server may be started either from a super-server such as `inetd`, or as a stand-alone daemon.

distccd does not need to run as root and should not.

distccd does not have a configuration file; it's behaviour is controlled only by command-line options and requests from clients.

## 4.1 Invoking distccd

These options may be used for either inetd or standalone mode.

If you want to see if the daemon started properly, look in the log file. By default this is something like `/var/log/daemon` or `/var/log/messages`, depending on your system.

`-``-help`

  Explains usage of the daemon and exits.

`-``-version`

  Shows the daemon version and exits.

`-N`, `-``-nice NICENESS`

  Makes the daemon more nice about giving up the CPU to other tasks on the machine. NICENESS is a value from 0 (regular priority) to 20 (lowest priority). This option is good if you want to run distccd in the background on a machine used for other purposes.

`-p, -``-port PORT`

  Set the TCP port to listen on. (Standalone mode only.)

`-P, -``-pid-file FILE`

  Save daemon process id to file.

`-``-verbose`

  Include debug messages in log.

`-``-no-detach`

  Do not detach from the shell that started the daemon. This may be useful when running distccd from a system such as daemontools that manages daemons after they start.

`-``-no-fork`

  Don't fork children for each connection, to allow attaching `gdb`. Don't use this if you don't understand it!

`--no-fifo`

  Send input to the compiler by writing to a temporary file, rather than using a pipe. This is required when the server's temporary directory is on NFS, on at least some machines. It may be faster in some circumstances, but probably is not.

`-``-log-file=FILE`

  Send messages here instead of syslog.

`-``-log-stderr`

  Send log messages to stderr, rather than to a file or syslog. This is mainly intended for use in debugging.

`-``-inetd`

  Serve a client connected to stdin/stdout. As the name suggests, this option should be used when distccd is run from within a super-server like `inetd`. distccd assumes inetd mode when stdin is a socket.

`-``-daemon`

  Bind and listen on a socket, rather than running from inetd. This is used for standalone mode. distccd assumes daemon mode at startup if stdin is a tty, so `--daemon` should be explicitly specified when starting distccd from a script or in a non-interactive ssh connection.

## 4.2 distccd Exit Codes

As for distcc exit .

## 4.3 distccd Environment Variables

`DISTCC_SAVE_TEMPS`

  If set to `1`, temporary files are not deleted after use. Good for debugging.

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