Here's a proposed patch to Automake to work around the FreeBSD mkdir bug described in <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-autoconf/2006-10/msg00012.html>
2006-10-09 Paul Eggert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> * lib/install-sh (posix_mkdir): Reject FreeBSD 6.1 mkdir -p -m, which incorrectly sets the mode of an existing destination directory. In some cases the unpatched install-sh could do the equivalent of "chmod 777 /" or "chmod 0 /" on a buggy FreeBSD system. We hope this is rare in practice, but it's clearly worth fixing. Problem reported by Alex in <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-autoconf/2006-10/msg00012.html>. --- lib/install-sh.~1.35.~ 2006-07-09 09:09:31.000000000 -0700 +++ lib/install-sh 2006-10-09 16:15:34.000000000 -0700 @@ -336,12 +336,24 @@ do trap 'ret=$?; rmdir "$tmpdir/d" "$tmpdir" 2>/dev/null; exit $ret' 0 if (umask $mkdir_umask && - exec $mkdirprog $mkdir_mode -p -- / "$tmpdir/d") >/dev/null 2>&1 + exec $mkdirprog $mkdir_mode -p -- "$tmpdir/d") >/dev/null 2>&1 then - # Check for bugs in HP-UX 11.23 and IRIX 6.5 mkdir. - case `ls -ld "$tmpdir"` in - d????-??-* ) posix_mkdir=:;; - esac + # Check for POSIX incompatibilities. + # FreeBSD 6.1 mkdir -m -p sets mode of existing directory. + # HP-UX 11.23 and IRIX 6.5 mkdir -m -p sets group- or + # other-writeable bit of parent directory when it shouldn't. + # Ancient mkdir lacks -m and -p. + ls_ld_tmpdir=`ls -ld "$tmpdir"` + case $ls_ld_tmpdir in + d????-?r-*) different_mode=700;; + d????-?--*) different_mode=755;; + *) false;; + esac && + $mkdirprog -m $different_mode -p -- "$tmpdir" && { + ls_ld_tmpdir_1=`ls -ld "$tmpdir"` + test "X$ls_ld_tmpdir" = "X$ls_ld_tmpdir_1" + } && + posix_mkdir=: rmdir "$tmpdir/d" "$tmpdir" else # Remove any dirs left behind by ancient mkdir implementations.