> Under "-N 1" the failing command will be logged as well.  You are
> of course redirecting both stderr and stdout to a build log?

The machine is a 2way xeon (p4,ht disabled) running netbsd2.0,
 building for itself and the checkout is from 10mins ago.

Relevant parts:
(if this list has preferences for attached  logs over inline for posting 
please let me know.)

===> build.sh command: ./build.sh -j3 -N2 build
===> No nonexistent/bin/nbmake, needs building.
===> Bootstrapping nbmake
checking for sh... /bin/sh
checking for gcc... cc
checking for C compiler default output... a.out
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for executable suffix... 
checking for object suffix... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether cc accepts -g... yes
checking how to run the C preprocessor... cc -E
checking for regex.h... yes
checking for poll.h... yes
checking for regfree in -lregex... no
checking for library containing regfree... none required
checking for setenv... yes
checking for strdup... yes
checking for strerror... yes
checking for strftime... yes
checking for vsnprintf... yes
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating buildmake.sh
cc  -O -D_PATH_BSHELL="/bin/sh" -D_PATH_DEFSHELLDIR="/bin" -DHAVE_SETENV=1 
-DHAVE_STRDUP=1 -DHAVE_STRERROR=1 -DHAVE_STRFTIME=1 -DHAVE_VSNPRINTF=1  
-c /usr/src/tools/make/../../usr.bin/make/arch.c

<--  snip  -->

--- sftp ---
#      link  sftp/sftp
/usr/src/obj/tooldir.NetBSD-2.0-i386/bin/i386--netbsdelf-gcc -Wl,-nostdlib     
-o sftp  
-Wl,-rpath-link,/usr/src/obj/destdir.i386/lib:/usr/src/obj/destdir.i386/usr/lib  
-L/usr/src/obj/destdir.i386/lib  -B/usr/src/obj/destdir.i386/usr/lib/ 
-B/usr/src/obj/destdir.i386/usr/lib/   sftp.o sftp-client.o sftp-int.o 
sftp-common.o sftp-glob.o misc.o -lssh -lcrypto -lz   
-L/usr/src/obj/destdir.i386/usr/lib -L/usr/src/obj/destdir.i386/usr/lib
--- dependall ---
--- dependall ---
2 errors

nbmake: stopped in /usr/src

*** Failed target:  do-build
*** Failed command: _makedirtarget() { dir="$1"; shift; target="$1"; shift; 
case "${dir}" in /*) this="${dir}/"; real="${dir}" ;; .) this=""; 
real="/usr/src" ;; *) this="${dir}/"; real="/usr/src/${dir}" ;; esac; 
show=${this:-.}; echo "${target} ===> ${show%/}${1:+ (with: $@)}"; cd 
"${real}" && /usr/src/obj/tooldir.NetBSD-2.0-i386/bin/nbmake 
_THISDIR_="${this}" "$@" ${target}; }; _makedirtarget . dependall 
BUILD_tools=no BUILD_lib=no
*** Error code 2

Stop.
nbmake: stopped in /usr/src
*** [build] Error code 1

nbmake: stopped in /usr/src

Cheers

-SW.