[cowbuilder-dist] fails if /home is on different partition than /var

You can override the directory using the PBUILDFOLDER variable.

For example, add export PBUILDFOLDER="/opt/builder/" to your
.bashrc for cowbuilder-dist to use /opt/builder as folder for
everything.

A workaround exists.

Define following in ~/.pbuilderrc
APTCACHEHARDLINK=no

the suggested workaround worked only for create command. Still produces following error messages with build.

cp: cannot create hard link `/var/cache/pbuilder/build//cow.32008/usr/share/man/man1/bzexe.1.gz' to `/home/juhapekka/pbuilder/quantal-base.cow/usr/share/man/man1/bzexe.1.gz': Invalid cross-device link

IMO, the bug is in the buildplace config value (/usr/share/pbuilder/pbuilderrc), which does not point under ~/pbuilder/[dist]_build

$ cowbuilder-dist quantal build [somepackage].dsc --dumpconfig
dump config
  mountproc: 0
  mountdev: 0
  mountdevpts: 0
  save_after_login: 0
  debug: 0
  buildplace: /var/cache/pbuilder/build//cow.3020
  buildresult: /home/juhapekka/pbuilder/quantal_result/
  basepath: /home/juhapekka/pbuilder/quantal-base.cow
  mirror: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
  distribution: quantal
  components: main restricted universe multiverse
  othermirror: (null)
  debbuildopts:
  binary_arch: 0
  http_proxy: (null)
  no_cowdancer_update: 0
  kernel_image: (null)
  initrd: (null)
  memory_megs: 128
  arch: i386

As a working solution is to define both APTCACHEHARDLINK and BUILDPLACE in ~/.pbuilderrc
APTCACHEHARDLINK=no
BUILDPLACE=~/pbuilder/buildplace

But a fix could be done in cowbuilder-dist file as it is missing the definition for buildplace under self.base like it is done for buildresult (see line 198 for buildresult).

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

I'm having the same problem upon cowbuilder --login --basepath=/home/strk/base-sid-i386.cow
The APTCACHEHARDLINK=no and BUILDPLACE=~/pbuilder/buildplace directives in ~/.pbuilderrc did not help