While I tried to upgrade both of my FreeBSD server (9 & 10) today, I got the following error:

install: /usr/ports/…/doc/: Inappropriate file type or format

Actually, here is the complete error message:

===>  Staging for memcached-1.4.17_1
===>   memcached-1.4.17_1 depends on shared library: libevent-2.0.so - found
===>   Generating temporary packing list
/usr/bin/make  install-recursive
Making install in doc
/usr/bin/make  install-am
test -z "/usr/local/man/man1" || /bin/mkdir -p "/usr/ports/databases/memcached/work/stage/usr/local/man/man1"
 install  -o root -g wheel -m 444 memcached.1 '/usr/ports/databases/memcached/work/stage/usr/local/man/man1'
test -z "/usr/local/bin" || /bin/mkdir -p "/usr/ports/databases/memcached/work/stage/usr/local/bin"
  install  -s -o root -g wheel -m 555 memcached '/usr/ports/databases/memcached/work/stage/usr/local/bin'
test -z "/usr/local/include/memcached" || /bin/mkdir -p "/usr/ports/databases/memcached/work/stage/usr/local/include/memcached"
 install  -o root -g wheel -m 444 protocol_binary.h '/usr/ports/databases/memcached/work/stage/usr/local/include/memcached'
install  -o root -g wheel -m 555 /usr/ports/databases/memcached/work/memcached-1.4.17/scripts/memcached-tool /usr/ports/databases/memcached/work/stage/usr/local/bin
install  -o root -g wheel -m 444 /usr/ports/databases/memcached/work/memcached-1.4.17/doc/ /usr/ports/databases/memcached/work/stage/usr/local/man/man1
install: /usr/ports/databases/memcached/work/memcached-1.4.17/doc/: Inappropriate file type or format
*** [post-install] Error code 71

Stop in /usr/ports/databases/memcached.
*** [install] Error code 1

Stop in /usr/ports/databases/memcached.

Initially, I thought the problem was caused by the syntax error of the code, therefore, I tried to do the following:

#Shut down the server
sudo /usr/local/etc/rc.d/memcached stop

#Remove Memcached from the system
sudo make deinstall

#Clean up the package
sudo make clean

#Compile the package
sudo make

#Install the package
sudo make install

Unfortunately, it still gave the same error message. I noticed that the error message has something to do with the documentation, so I decide to remove the documentation option in the installation page, i.e.,

#Enter the package setup
sudo make config

#Remove the "doc" option.

Unfortunately, it still gave the same response. I then tried to investigate the cause of the error. So I tried to copy the error command and re-ran it:

install  -o root -g wheel -m 444 /usr/ports/databases/memcached/work/memcached-1.4.17/doc/ /usr/ports/databases/memcached/work/stage/usr/local/man/man1

Which return the exact the same error message:

install: /usr/ports/databases/memcached/work/memcached-1.4.17/doc/: No such file or directory

So I came up an idea. Since I don’t really need the documentation, why not I disable the document option?

cd /usr/ports/databases/memcached

sudo nano Makefile

Change the following from:

post-install:
        ${INSTALL_SCRIPT} ${WRKSRC}/scripts/memcached-tool ${STAGEDIR}${PREFIX}/bin
        ${INSTALL_MAN} ${WRKSRC}/doc/${MAN1} ${STAGEDIR}${MAN1PREFIX}/man/man1
        @${MKDIR} ${STAGEDIR}${DOCSDIR}

To:

post-install:
        ${INSTALL_SCRIPT} ${WRKSRC}/scripts/memcached-tool ${STAGEDIR}${PREFIX}/bin
#        ${INSTALL_MAN} ${WRKSRC}/doc/${MAN1} ${STAGEDIR}${MAN1PREFIX}/man/man1
        @${MKDIR} ${STAGEDIR}${DOCSDIR}

That’s right, I just want to comment out the installation of the man/documentation part. Now, let’s try to reinstall the package again.

#sudo make install

Guess what, it works! Have fun!

–Derrick