"make: *** internal error: invalid --jobserver-auth string"

[TApplencourt]

Steps to reproduce

$ spack external find gmake ruby      # gmake@4.2.1, ruby@4.0.1
$ spack install ruby-rdiscount

Error message

==> ruby-rdiscount: Executing phase: 'install'
==> [2026-08-04-14:50:00.241225] /home/applenco/.rbenv/versions/4.0.1/bin/gem install --norc --ignore-dependencies --install-dir /tmp/jsrepro/opt/linux-icelake/ruby-rdiscount-2.2.0.2-dmbb6k7gkksucoooxmlb265kqrgvytnt rdiscount-2.2.0.2.gem
  Building native extensions. This could take a while...
  current directory: /tmp/jsrepro/opt/linux-icelake/ruby-rdiscount-2.2.0.2-dmbb6k7gkksucoooxmlb265kqrgvytnt/gems/rdiscount-2.2.0.2/ext
  make DESTDIR\= sitearchdir\=./.gem.20260804-103249-k4a74d sitelibdir\=./.gem.20260804-103249-k4a74d clean
> make: *** internal error: invalid --jobserver-auth string 'fifo:/tmp/tmpi8ejzpbf/jobserver_fifo'.  Stop.

  current directory: /tmp/jsrepro/opt/linux-icelake/ruby-rdiscount-2.2.0.2-dmbb6k7gkksucoooxmlb265kqrgvytnt/gems/rdiscount-2.2.0.2/ext
  make DESTDIR\= sitearchdir\=./.gem.20260804-103249-k4a74d sitelibdir\=./.gem.20260804-103249-k4a74d
> make: *** internal error: invalid --jobserver-auth string 'fifo:/tmp/tmpi8ejzpbf/jobserver_fifo'.  Stop.

  make failed, exit code 2
==> Error: The following packages failed to install:
ruby-rdiscount@2.2.0.2/dmbb6k7gkksucoooxmlb265kqrgvytnt

Information on your system

* **Spack:** 1.2.2 (3e19345b6e12f5ff1b874f4059622fc6a1fd804a), reproduced; code
  unchanged on `develop` at the time of writing
* **Platform:** linux-sles15-icelake
* **gmake:** 4.2.1 (external)
* **ruby:** 4.0.1 (external)

General information

• I have run spack debug report and reported the version of Spack/Python/Platform
• I have searched the issues of this repo and believe this is not a duplicate
• I have run the failing commands in debug mode and reported the output

[TApplencourt]

An alternative title can be
# New installer: packages without a gmake dependency are assumed to be gmake >= 4.4

For example the 18 RubyPackageare using make implicitly but none of them declare gmake as a dependency. This lead to this error message.

As a work-arround either config:installer:old or addingdepends_on("gmake", type="build")

I think that the issue is that the FIFO jobserver support was added in gmake 4.4. If a package doesn't set a explicit gmake support , it will be asummed somehow that we have a gmake 4.4+ on our system. Hence the bug.

Don't hesitate if you need more info

[haampie]

Hey, this is a spack-packages issue. You'd have to add depends_on("gmake", type="build"). Can you do that? Thanks!