automake config.status error after installing all new automake via darwin ports

[Mike Schiffman]

It's been over four years since I've touched some of the C code I'm  
working on (all of the automake m4 is about that old).. I had to  
update my local installation of automake (aclocal, automake, libtool,  
etc) via Darwin ports (I'm on a Macbook pro)... And doing that made  
something insidious inside my previously working automake code break.  
To wit:

./configure works fine...

Then I 'make'
and it bails:

23457SENDIT:/home/mike/Projects/MOP# make
/bin/sh ./config.status --recheck
running /bin/sh ./configure   --no-create --no-recursion
beginning autoconfiguration process for pith-0.10...
checking build system type... i386-apple-darwin9.4.0
checking host system type... i386-apple-darwin9.4.0
checking target system type... i386-apple-darwin9.4.0
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for gawk... no
checking for mawk... no
checking for nawk... no
checking for awk... awk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking whether to enable maintainer-specific portions of  
Makefiles... no
checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of executables...
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to accept ANSI C... none needed
checking for style of include used by make... GNU
checking dependency style of gcc... none
checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
checking for egrep... grep -E
checking whether gcc needs -traditional... no
checking for libnet_build_ipv4 in -lnet... yes
checking for pcap_open_live in -lpcap... yes
checking for xmlParseFile in -lxml2... yes
checking for pthread_create in -lpthread... yes
checking for ANSI C header files... rm: conftest.dSYM: is a directory
rm: conftest.dSYM: is a directory
yes
checking for an ANSI C-conforming const... yes
checking for pcap_lib_version... yes
configure: creating ./config.status
 cd  && /bin/sh ./config.status Makefile
/bin/sh: ./config.status: No such file or directory
make: *** [Makefile] Error 127
23457SENDIT:/home/mike/Projects/MOP#


This error is now omnipresent in all code I've updated with the new  
versions of the automake tools. Anyone?

--
Mike Schiffman, CISSP
Audentis Fortuna Iuvat
Infrastructure Security Research and Development