[gentoo-alt] Gentoo Prefix | Mac Leopard 10.5.8 | Permissions issue

[Daniel Ibn Zayd]

SUMMARY: 
I'm dealing with the following error:
!!! Directory initialization failed: '/Volumes/GENTOO/var/lib/portage'
As usual, I imagine the answer is staring me in the face....but here goes.

BACKGROUND: 
I have a Quicksilver G4 with a drive partition dedicated to Gentoo/Prefix and Portage.

Everything runs swimmingly until I have to for whatever reason re-install the main OS, at which point my Gentoo/Prefix breaks.

The last time this happened, which I posted about, I ended up rebuilding Gentoo/Prefix/Portage from scratch on its own partition.

I now realize that the issue comes down to user/group permissions, and how Apple messed this up basically in the migration path through the various cat OSes (Panther->Tiger->Leopard). This time I have re-installed Leopard, migrated back my files (Gentoo is on a separate volume) but I wanted to make sure the former problems were solved before continuing. After a week of research on the upgrade bug (in which the change in user, even if migrating, brings about a phantom "unknown" group in file listings) and have managed to bring all the permissions up to fresh-install "Leopard" standards; meaning, user name/#UID (502) as owner, and staff/#GID (20) as group. Everything is working as it should.

When I came back to test the Prefix/Portage, I got the following error:

[code]danielibnzayd@boojum /Volumes/GENTOO $ emerge --update
!!! Directory initialization failed: '/Volumes/GENTOO/var/lib/portage'
!!! chown('/Volumes/GENTOO/var/lib/portage', -1, [b]502[/b])
!!! Directory initialization failed: '/Volumes/GENTOO/var/cache/edb'
!!! chown('/Volumes/GENTOO/var/cache/edb', -1, [b]502[/b])
[Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/Volumes/GENTOO/var/lib/gentoo/news/.news-gentoo_prefix.unread.portage_lockfile': chown('/Volumes/GENTOO/var/lib/gentoo/news/.news-gentoo_prefix.unread.portage_lockfile', -1, [b]502[/b])
Cannot chown a lockfile: '/Volumes/GENTOO/var/lib/gentoo/news/.news-gentoo_prefix.unread.portage_lockfile'
[b]Group IDs of current user: 20 98 80[/b]

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies  [Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/Volumes/GENTOO/var/db/.pkg.portage_lockfile': chown('/Volumes/GENTOO/var/db/.pkg.portage_lockfile', -1, 502)
Cannot chown a lockfile: '/Volumes/GENTOO/var/db/.pkg.portage_lockfile'
Group IDs of current user: 20 98 80
 \... done!


Exiting on signal 2[/code]

I'm assuming the error regarding "502" concerns the former erroneous [b]group[/b] ID number (which formerly was "501" or "502", and which I have changed to 20, per Leopard standards. When I grepped on "502" as a group ID on the Gentoo partition, I found the [u]etc/make.globals[/u] file which it says not to edit. I changed the group ID to 20 (I left the user ID as 502, which is correct) and the group name to "staff":

[code]# Default portage user/group
PORTAGE_USER='danielibnzayd'
PORTAGE_GROUP='staff' [b]#was danielibnzayd[/b]
PORTAGE_ROOT_USER='danielibnzayd'

# Default ownership of installed files.
PORTAGE_INST_UID="502"
PORTAGE_INST_GID="20"[/code]  [b]#was 502[/b]

...and the error persists. I imagine there is a config file I am overlooking? 

The problem seems to be with Python? I tried python-updater, and got this error message:

Total: 6 packages (1 upgrade, 2 new, 1 in new slot, 2 reinstalls), Size of downloads: 0 kB

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Volumes/GENTOO/usr/lib/portage/pym/portage/util/__init__.py", line 1054, in apply_permissions
    os.chown(filename, uid, gid)
  File "/Volumes/GENTOO/usr/lib/portage/pym/portage/__init__.py", line 260, in __call__
    rval = self._func(*wrapped_args, **wrapped_kwargs)
PermissionError: [Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/Volumes/GENTOO/var/cache/edb/mtimedb'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

[code]Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Volumes/GENTOO/usr/bin/emerge", line 50, in <module>
    retval = emerge_main()
  File "/Volumes/GENTOO/usr/lib/portage/pym/_emerge/main.py", line 1032, in emerge_main
    return run_action(emerge_config)
  File "/Volumes/GENTOO/usr/lib/portage/pym/_emerge/actions.py", line 4063, in run_action
    emerge_config.args, spinner)
  File "/Volumes/GENTOO/usr/lib/portage/pym/_emerge/actions.py", line 440, in action_build
    mtimedb.commit()
  File "/Volumes/GENTOO/usr/lib/portage/pym/portage/util/mtimedb.py", line 127, in commit
    uid=uid, gid=portage_gid, mode=0o644)
  File "/Volumes/GENTOO/usr/lib/portage/pym/portage/util/__init__.py", line 1224, in apply_secpass_permissions
    stat_cached=stat_cached, follow_links=follow_links)
  File "/Volumes/GENTOO/usr/lib/portage/pym/portage/util/__init__.py", line 1061, in apply_permissions
    raise OperationNotPermitted(func_call)
portage.exception.OperationNotPermitted: chown('/Volumes/GENTOO/var/cache/edb/mtimedb', 502, 502)
danielibnzayd@boojum /Volumes/GENTOO $[/code]

Where do I tell Python to change its idea of group privileges?

Any leads/ideas? Thanks in advance.