This is an attempt to fix this error we have today on test nodes:

 I will use the following settings for compiling and testing:

   cflags        (mysql_config ) = -I/srv/slapgrid/slappart7/srv/testnode/alf/soft/56c62517c80383a80d3cfbd47342d4b9/parts/mariadb/include/mysql -I/srv/slapgrid/slappart7/srv/testnode/alf/soft/56c62517c80383a80d3cfbd47342d4b9/parts/mariadb/include/mysql/..
   embedded      (mysql_config ) = 
   ldflags       (guessed      ) = 
   libs          (mysql_config ) = -L/srv/slapgrid/slappart7/srv/testnode/alf/soft/56c62517c80383a80d3cfbd47342d4b9/parts/mariadb/lib -lmysqlclient -lpthread -lz -lm -ldl -lssl -lcrypto
   mysql_config  (User's choice) = /srv/slapgrid/slappart7/srv/testnode/alf/soft/56c62517c80383a80d3cfbd47342d4b9/parts/mariadb/bin/mysql_config
   nocatchstderr (default      ) = 0
   nofoundrows   (default      ) = 0
   nossl         (default      ) = 0
   testdb        (default      ) = test
   testhost      (default      ) = 
   testpassword  (default      ) = 
   testport      (default      ) = 
   testsocket    (default      ) = 
   testuser      (guessed      ) = 

 To change these settings, see 'perl Makefile.PL --help' and
 'perldoc DBD::mysql::INSTALL'.

 Checking if libs are available for compiling...
 Can't link/include C library 'z', 'ssl', 'crypto', aborting.
 perl-DBD-mariadb: Command failed with exit code 2: /srv/slapgrid/slappart7/srv/testnode/alf/soft/56c62517c80383a80d3cfbd47342d4b9/parts/perl/bin/perl Makefile.PL --mysql_config=/srv/slapgrid/slappart7/srv/testnode/alf/soft/56c62517c80383a80d3cfbd47342d4b9/parts/mariadb/bin/mysql_config 
 perl-DBD-mariadb: Compilation error. The package is left as is at /srv/slapgrid/slappart7/srv/testnode/alf/soft/56c62517c80383a80d3cfbd47342d4b9/parts/perl-DBD-mariadb__compile__/DBD-mysql-4.042 where you can inspect what went wrong
 While:
   Installing perl-DBD-mariadb.
 Error: System error
 Failed to run buildout profile in directory '/srv/slapgrid/slappart7/srv/testnode/alf/soft/56c62517c80383a80d3cfbd47342d4b9'
 Finished software releases.

my guess is that it's just missing include dirs in CFLAGS.

I have not investigated why and when this started failing exactly. This might related to some changes in perl-DBD-MySQL coming from 09cf12fd .

@kazuhiko @jm I'm opening this early to prevent duplicated work, I am still waiting for a local build to confirm I can reproduce locally and that this approach really works. It probably only fails when some development libraries are missing.