This is what you could do: try reproducing this problem with shell.
mkdir -p /autofs/na3_home1/adams/petsc_master_opt64idx_pgi/PETScTestDirectory echo $? rmdir /autofs/na3_home1/adams/petsc_master_opt64idx_pgi/PETScTestDirectory echo $? If it succeeds - try reproducing this from python python >>> import os >>> os.makedirs('/autofs/na3_home1/adams/petsc_master_opt64idx_pgi/PETScTestDirectory') >>> os.rmdir('/autofs/na3_home1/adams/petsc_master_opt64idx_pgi/PETScTestDirectory') And if it works - try configure again. Perhaps your filesystem was misbehaving when you ran configure previously. Satish On Fri, 5 Jun 2015, Mark Adams wrote: > On Thu, Jun 4, 2015 at 10:53 PM, Barry Smith <bsm...@mcs.anl.gov> wrote: > > > > > Hmm, > > > > You do not have write permissions to the --prefix directory > > /autofs/na3_home1/adams/petsc_master_opt64idx_pgi > > You will be prompted for the sudo password for > > any external package installs > > > > =============================================================================== > > > > Do you have write permission for this directory? > > > > To test if you have write permission it does the following code: > > > > def setInstallDir(self): > > ''' setup installDir to either prefix or if that is not set to > > PETSC_DIR/PETSC_ARCH''' > > self.installSudo = '' > > self.installSudoMessage = '' > > if self.framework.argDB['prefix']: > > self.dir = self.framework.argDB['prefix'] > > try: > > os.makedirs(os.path.join(self.dir,'PETScTestDirectory')) > > os.rmdir(os.path.join(self.dir,'PETScTestDirectory')) > > except: > > self.installSudoMessage = 'You do not have write permissions to > > the --prefix directory '+self.dir+'\nYou will be prompted for the sudo > > password for any external package installs' > > > > > > Can you make a directory in /autofs/na3_home1/adams/ ? > > > > This is my home directory: > > env003/petsc> ll -a /autofs/na3_home1/adams/ > total 20544 > drwxr-xr-x 39 adams users 12288 May 16 07:21 . > drwxr-xr-x 5027 root root 163840 May 22 16:05 .. > drwxr-xr-x 6 adams adams 4096 Jan 9 07:26 .allinea > > THis script worked a few months ago. I will try to build with a prefix, > just to see if that is the only problem. > > > > > > > > > Barry > > > > > On Jun 4, 2015, at 9:43 PM, Mark Adams <mfad...@lbl.gov> wrote: > > > > > > Yet again, this one does have a slightly amusing and slightly baffling > > error message though. > > > Mark > > > <configure.log> > > > > >