pbulk on pkgsrc_2017Q1 consistently failing to install build dependencies before aborting

["Christopher J. Ruwe" <cjr%cruwe.de@localhost>]

Hi,

I have been fighting (probably mostly against myself for the better
part) to get pkgrc_2017Q1 pbulk build on various platforms, docker,
Linux lxd and vagrant virtualboxes, each using a Fedora 25 as base. I
do not have hardware available atm to cross-check.

I have started off with Jonathan Perkins instructions (thank you for
your work on pkgsrc!) [1], continued with a slightly more recent
version [2], tried to adapt [3] to a similar setup and even resorted
to the desparate measure of reading the handbook [4].

In each case, whether manually bootstrapping with
.../pkgsrc/bootstrap/bootstrap <optionset1>/<optionset2> or with
.../pkgsrc/mk/pbulk/pbulk.sh -l (untouched settings), builds fail fast
with

=> Bootstrap dependency digest>=20010302: NOT found
=> Verifying /nonexistent for ../../pkgtools/digest
bmake[1]: don't know how to make /nonexistent. Stop

(This one is for perl with a build for sysutils/coreutils from the
preistine mk/pbulk/pbulk script, but the same happens for m4 when
working along Jonathan's instructions.)

I am most certain, although I have not worked out how to set debug
flags apart from squeezing -x into the code, that pbulk somehow fails
to install what FreeBSD calls "build dependencies" - is it "tool
dependencies" in pkgsrc? I have difficulties figuring out the correct
terminology.

When I build a custom bootstrap.tgz-dirtree _with_ the missing build
dependency _included_ via bmake package-install (I manually tgz
afterwards), the build continues only to fail at the next build
dependency.

I am reasonably certain that doing so would defeat the purpose of
pkgsrc. Could somebody point me at what I am doing terribly wrong here
or has something changed so much that I am drawing wrong conclusions
from outdated documentation?

(I can provide dockerfiles, docker commands and scripts on pastebin
should that help.)

[1] https://www.perkin.org.uk/posts/distributed-chrooted-pkgsrc-bulk-bu
ilds.html 
[2] https://pkgsrc.joyent.com/docs/bulk/
[3] https://wiki.netbsd.org/tutorials/pkgsrc/pbulk/
[4] https://www.netbsd.org/docs/pkgsrc/bulk.html

Cheers and thanks,
-- 
Christopher