pbulk does not create packages

[brook%biology.nmsu.edu@localhost (Brook Milligan)]

I am still having problems with pbulk.  As a short test of the entire
setup, I limited a non-parallel build, run by root, to
meta-pkgs/boost.  The entire initialization phase (which involves
several scanning/resolving iterations) seems to yield 14 packages to
build.  However, the build phase leads to the following messages:

     Initialisation complete.
     [1/14] Starting build of  digest-20080510
     [1/14] Successfully built digest-20080510
     [2/14] Starting build of  f2c-20090411nb4
     [2/14] Failed to build    f2c-20090411nb4
     [10/14] Starting build of  boost-jam-1.42.0
     [10/14] Failed to build    boost-jam-1.42.0
     [13/14] Starting build of  boost-docs-1.42.0
     [13/14] Failed to build    boost-docs-1.42.0
     [14/14] Starting build of  boost-build-1.42.0
     [14/14] Failed to build    boost-build-1.42.0
     Building pkg_summary...
     cd: can't cd to /packages/All

All the failed packages fail in the dependency step; every depend.log
file contains the following and /packages is entirely empty.

     pkg_add: Can't process file:///packages/All/digest-20080510*: No such file 
or directory
     pkg_add: no pkg found for 'digest-20080510', sorry.
     pkg_add: 1 package addition failed

This entire setup was freshly made with the following script, which I
think captures all the steps mentioned in doc/HOWTO-pbulk:

     #!/bin/sh

     echo "create directories ..."
     for f in bulklog scratch distfiles packages usr/pkg_bulk; do
         rm -rf /${f}
         mkdir -p /${f}
         chown pbulk /${f}
         chmod 755 /${f}
     done

     echo "create bootstrap ..."
     cd /usr/pkgsrc/bootstrap
     rm -rf work
     ./bootstrap --prefix=/usr/pkg_bulk --pkgdbdir=/usr/pkg_bulk/.pkgdb 

     echo "create pkg_bulk packages ..."
     for f in pkgtools/pbulk misc/screen; do
         cd /usr/pkgsrc/${f} && \
         env PATH=/usr/pkg_bulk/bin:/usr/pkg_bulk/sbin:${PATH} bmake clean 
CLEANDEPENDS=yes
         env PATH=/usr/pkg_bulk/bin:/usr/pkg_bulk/sbin:${PATH} bmake package
     done

     echo "configuration files ..."
     for f in mk.conf pbulk.conf; do
         diff -u /usr/pkgsrc/${f} /usr/pkg_bulk/etc/${f}
         cp /usr/pkgsrc/${f} /usr/pkg_bulk/etc/${f}
     done

     echo "pkgsrc ownership ..."
     chown -R pbulk /usr/pkgsrc

It seems that the digest package is made but is never installed or
packaged.  After the build, /usr/pkg still does not exist, either; I
expected that the digest package would have been installed there after
being built and so the directory would exist afterwards.

Here is my /usr/pkg_bulk/etc/mk.conf file:

     # Example /usr/pkg_bulk/etc/mk.conf file produced by bootstrap-pkgsrc
     # Tue May  4 00:42:19 UTC 2010

     .ifdef BSD_PKG_MK  # begin pkgsrc settings

     PKG_DBDIR=         /usr/pkg_bulk/.pkgdb
     LOCALBASE=         /usr/pkg_bulk
     VARBASE=           /usr/pkg_bulk/var
     PKG_TOOLS_BIN=             /usr/pkg_bulk/sbin
     PKGMANDIR=         man

     WRKOBJDIR=                 /scratch
     PKGSRCDIR=                 /usr/pkgsrc
     DISTDIR=                   /distfiles
     PACKAGES=                  /packages

     FAILOVER_FETCH=                    yes

     # X11_TYPE=                        modular

     SKIP_LICENSE_CHECK=                yes
     ALLOW_VULNERABLE_PACKAGES= yes

     PKG_DEVELOPER?=                    yes

     .endif                     # end pkgsrc settings

and here is a portion of the /usr/pkg_bulk/etc/pbulk.conf file (the
rest should be pretty much the same as the original):

     master_mode=no
     master_ip=
     scan_clients=""
     build_clients=""
     bootstrapkit=
     limited_list=/usr/pkgsrc/pbulk.packages    # XXX - only meta-pkgs/boost
     unprivileged_user=pbulk
     bulklog=/bulklog
     packages=/packages
     prefix=/usr/pkg
     pkgsrc=/usr/pkgsrc
     pkgdb=/var/db/pkg
     varbase=/var
     make=/usr/bin/make
     keep_wrkdir=yes            # XXX - neither of these seem to have an effect;
     keep_prefix=yes            #       no additional information is in /bulklog

Have I misconfigured something?  Must there be something set in the
environment?  The only extra part of the environment for both root and
pbulk is to add entries in ~/.profile to the head of $PATH for
packages in /usr/pkg_bulk.  Is there a way to get more information
about what actually is happening?  Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks alot.

Cheers,
Brook