Bug 1297808

try make clean before - 
make clean; ./autogen.sh --system; make dist check

works for me

$ git checkout v4.17.17
$ make clean
make: *** No rule to make target 'clean'.  Stop.

as expected...

$ git checkout v4.17.17
$ ./autogen.sh --system --enable-hooks
$ make clean
$ make distcheck

finish with:

Making all in rpc
make[3]: Entering directory '/NotBackedUp/sbonazzo/upstream/vdsm/vdsm-4.17.17/_build/sub/vdsm/rpc'
  Generate vdsm-api.html
PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1 PYTHONPATH=../../../../vdsm/rpc/../lib \
    /usr/bin/python ../../../../vdsm/rpc/process-schema.py \
              ../../../../vdsm/rpc/vdsmapi-schema.json ../../../../vdsm/rpc/vdsm-api.html
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "../../../../vdsm/rpc/process-schema.py", line 372, in <module>
    main()
  File "../../../../vdsm/rpc/process-schema.py", line 368, in main
    create_doc(symbols, output)
  File "../../../../vdsm/rpc/process-schema.py", line 292, in create_doc
    with open(filename, 'w') as f:
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '../../../../vdsm/rpc/vdsm-api.html'
Makefile:692: recipe for target 'vdsm-api.html' failed
make[3]: *** [vdsm-api.html] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory '/NotBackedUp/sbonazzo/upstream/vdsm/vdsm-4.17.17/_build/sub/vdsm/rpc'
Makefile:895: recipe for target 'all-recursive' failed
make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory '/NotBackedUp/sbonazzo/upstream/vdsm/vdsm-4.17.17/_build/sub/vdsm'
Makefile:559: recipe for target 'all-recursive' failed
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/NotBackedUp/sbonazzo/upstream/vdsm/vdsm-4.17.17/_build/sub'
Makefile:768: recipe for target 'distcheck' failed
make: *** [distcheck] Error 1


Note I'm not root.

yes.. dist check and distcheck are different

Piotr, please check the issue

After fixing the issue with vdsm-api.html generation there is still issue with make distcheck:

if [ -x "/usr/bin/python3" ]; then \
    PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1 /usr/bin/python3 -m compileall \
	contrib/logdb contrib/profile-stats init/daemonAdapter vdsm/get-conf-item vdsm/set-conf-item vdsm/supervdsmServer vdsm/vdsm vdsm/vdsm-restore-net-config vdsm/storage/curl-img-wrap vdsm/storage/fc-scan vdsm-tool/vdsm-tool  \
	`find . -name '*.py'`; \
else \
    echo "Warning: skipping python3 syntax check"; \
fi
Listing 'contrib/logdb'...
Can't list 'contrib/logdb'
Listing 'contrib/profile-stats'...
Can't list 'contrib/profile-stats'
Listing 'init/daemonAdapter'...
Can't list 'init/daemonAdapter'
Listing 'vdsm/get-conf-item'...
Can't list 'vdsm/get-conf-item'
Listing 'vdsm/set-conf-item'...
Can't list 'vdsm/set-conf-item'
Listing 'vdsm/supervdsmServer'...
Can't list 'vdsm/supervdsmServer'
Listing 'vdsm/vdsm'...
Can't list 'vdsm/vdsm'
Listing 'vdsm/vdsm-restore-net-config'...
Can't list 'vdsm/vdsm-restore-net-config'
Listing 'vdsm/storage/curl-img-wrap'...
Can't list 'vdsm/storage/curl-img-wrap'
Listing 'vdsm/storage/fc-scan'...
Can't list 'vdsm/storage/fc-scan'
Listing 'vdsm-tool/vdsm-tool'...
Can't list 'vdsm-tool/vdsm-tool'
Compiling './lib/vdsm/tool/validate_ovirt_certs.py'...
Compiling './lib/vdsm/config.py'...
Compiling './lib/vdsm/dsaversion.py'...
Compiling './lib/vdsm/constants.py'...
Compiling './vdsm/sos/vdsm.py'...
Compiling './vdsm/dumpStorageTable.py'...
Compiling './tests/crossImportsTests.py'...
python -c 'import pyflakes; print("pyflakes-%s" % pyflakes.__version__)'
pyflakes-0.8.1
( find . -path './.git' -prune -type f -o \
	-name '*.py' && \
	echo contrib/logdb contrib/profile-stats init/daemonAdapter vdsm/get-conf-item vdsm/set-conf-item vdsm/supervdsmServer vdsm/vdsm vdsm/vdsm-restore-net-config vdsm/storage/curl-img-wrap vdsm/storage/fc-scan vdsm-tool/vdsm-tool  ) | xargs /usr/bin/pyflakes
contrib/logdb: No such file or directory
contrib/profile-stats: No such file or directory
init/daemonAdapter: No such file or directory
vdsm/get-conf-item: No such file or directory
vdsm/set-conf-item: No such file or directory
vdsm/supervdsmServer: No such file or directory
vdsm/vdsm: No such file or directory
vdsm/vdsm-restore-net-config: No such file or directory
vdsm/storage/curl-img-wrap: No such file or directory
vdsm/storage/fc-scan: No such file or directory
vdsm-tool/vdsm-tool: No such file or directory
Makefile:984: recipe for target 'pyflakes' failed
make[1]: *** [pyflakes] Error 123
make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/pkliczewski/git/bug/vdsm/vdsm-4.17.999/_build/sub'
Makefile:754: recipe for target 'distcheck' failed
make: *** [distcheck] Error 1

Still relevant?

Yes, make distcheck still is not working. No work done around this change for long time.

To properly support distcheck we would need to develop special Python loader, because VDSM has a lot of generated Python files. Due to insufficient resources closing for now