[gentoo-user] zfs emerge failure

[John Blinka <john.blinka@gmail.com>]

Hi, Gentoo,

Hope someone can shed some light on continuing emerge failures for zfs
since gnetoo-sources-4.4.39 and zfs-0.6.5.8.  I was able to install
that version of zfs with that kernel last November on one of my
machines, but have been unable to upgrade zfs since then, or to
install it in any newer kernel, or even to re-install the same version
on the same kernel.

Emerge fails consistently in the configuration phase for spl with the
following snippet in the log:

checking kernel source directory... /usr/src/linux
checking kernel build directory... /lib/modules/4.12.5-gentoo/build
checking kernel source version... Not found
configure: error: *** Cannot find UTS_RELEASE definition.

!!! Please attach the following file when seeking support:
!!! /var/tmp/portage/sys-kernel/spl-0.7.1/work/spl-0.7.1/config.log
 * ERROR: sys-kernel/spl-0.7.1::gentoo failed (configure phase):
 *   econf failed
 *
 * Call stack:
 *               ebuild.sh, line  115:  Called src_configure
 *             environment, line 3831:  Called autotools-utils_src_configure
 *             environment, line  614:  Called econf
'--docdir=/usr/share/doc/spl-0.7.1' '--bindir=/bin' '--sbindir=/sbin'
'--with-config=all' '--with-linux=/usr/src/linux'
'--with-linux-obj=/lib/modules/4.12.5-gentoo/build' '--disable-debug'
 *        phase-helpers.sh, line  665:  Called __helpers_die 'econf failed'
 *   isolated-functions.sh, line  117:  Called die
 * The specific snippet of code:
 *           die "$@"

Googling around for the "Cannot find UTS_RELEASE" complaint reveals
that a few people have encountered this problem over the years.  It
appeared in those cases to be attributable to the user running the
configuration script not having sufficient authority to read
./include/generated/utsrelease.h in the kernel tree.   As far as I can
tell, I think I ought to have sufficient permission to read that file.
I've gone so far as to chmod 777 the entire kernel tree to ensure
sufficient access.  No luck with that "solution": same error.

I've tried strace on emerge to see if I could figure out what it's
doing when it's looking for UTS_RELEASE, but no luck  with that
either.  Nothing that I can find in Bugzilla, either, although that
could be due to inexperience in using it.

Any idea what could be going on, or how I could go about debugging it
more effectively?

Thanks,

John Blinka