Having a Guix archive on the download page?

Having a Guix archive on the download page?

[Pjotr Prins]

Is it an idea to also have a current Guix archive on the download
page? Or at least a link to one?

   https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/download/

Ever so often I need to rescue a running Guix system which won't run
guix pull and even a build-from-source quickly. Being able to do

   guix archive --import < guix-latest.nar

or something similar would be rather convenient. 

Now I am packing my own archive from a VM because my systems won't
build a recent tree and guix pull requires guile-git which won't build
in turn. It is one of those days that I look to either pack guix or
have a long slog of building just to get going again...

With a downloadable archive, and with the recent improvement of guix
pull, I think anyone can rescue quickly any guix daemon and build
system. 

The key term is: convenience.

Pj.

guix pull le-certs problem - formerly: Having a Guix archive

[Pjotr Prins]

I wrote up how I rescue guix tools using a VM and guix archive:

  https://gitlab.com/pjotrp/guix-notes/blob/master/GUIX-RESCUE.org

so you have an idea what I am talking about.

Unfortunately I am now getting an le-certs error on guix pull:

  guix pull: error: build failed: opening file `/gnu/store/cm5gjbfkps9g18z6a49shk55ai9101nk-le-certs-0.drv': No such file or directory

This is the case with guix-daemon and client versions 0.14xx and 0.15.

Any idea? Should that not be part of guix archive guix.nar then? Even
so, it does not matter which version I run. Also after installing guix
with

  guix package -i guix

Pj.

On Sat, Jul 07, 2018 at 02:17:12PM +0200, Pjotr Prins wrote:
> Is it an idea to also have a current Guix archive on the download
> page? Or at least a link to one?
> 
>    https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/download/
> 
> Ever so often I need to rescue a running Guix system which won't run
> guix pull and even a build-from-source quickly. Being able to do
> 
>    guix archive --import < guix-latest.nar
> 
> or something similar would be rather convenient. 

Re: guix pull le-certs problem - formerly: Having a Guix archive

[Pjotr Prins]

Oh yes,

  guix package -i le-certs

  The following package will be installed:
     le-certs     0       /gnu/store/35bj4v3skwwdmydsndz1hj14d7p95qcb-le-certs-0

  guix package: error: build failed: opening file `/gnu/store/cm5gjbfkps9g18z6a49shk55ai9101nk-le-certs-0.drv': No such file or directory

A bit circular.

Pj.

On Sun, Jul 08, 2018 at 02:28:51PM +0200, Pjotr Prins wrote:
> I wrote up how I rescue guix tools using a VM and guix archive:
> 
>   https://gitlab.com/pjotrp/guix-notes/blob/master/GUIX-RESCUE.org
> 
> so you have an idea what I am talking about.
> 
> Unfortunately I am now getting an le-certs error on guix pull:
> 
>   guix pull: error: build failed: opening file `/gnu/store/cm5gjbfkps9g18z6a49shk55ai9101nk-le-certs-0.drv': No such file or directory
> 
> This is the case with guix-daemon and client versions 0.14xx and 0.15.
> 
> Any idea? Should that not be part of guix archive guix.nar then? Even
> so, it does not matter which version I run. Also after installing guix
> with
> 
>   guix package -i guix
> 
> Pj.
> 
> On Sat, Jul 07, 2018 at 02:17:12PM +0200, Pjotr Prins wrote:
> > Is it an idea to also have a current Guix archive on the download
> > page? Or at least a link to one?
> > 
> >    https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/download/
> > 
> > Ever so often I need to rescue a running Guix system which won't run
> > guix pull and even a build-from-source quickly. Being able to do
> > 
> >    guix archive --import < guix-latest.nar
> > 
> > or something similar would be rather convenient. 
> 

Re: guix pull le-certs problem - formerly: Having a Guix archive

[Pjotr Prins]

On another host it is working. Not sure why below particular host is
failing, but it looks to me when you want to install le-certs it
should just do it ;)

Pj.

On Sun, Jul 08, 2018 at 02:34:30PM +0200, Pjotr Prins wrote:
> Oh yes,
> 
>   guix package -i le-certs
> 
>   The following package will be installed:
>      le-certs     0       /gnu/store/35bj4v3skwwdmydsndz1hj14d7p95qcb-le-certs-0
> 
>   guix package: error: build failed: opening file `/gnu/store/cm5gjbfkps9g18z6a49shk55ai9101nk-le-certs-0.drv': No such file or directory
> 
> A bit circular.
> 
> Pj.
> 
> On Sun, Jul 08, 2018 at 02:28:51PM +0200, Pjotr Prins wrote:
> > I wrote up how I rescue guix tools using a VM and guix archive:
> > 
> >   https://gitlab.com/pjotrp/guix-notes/blob/master/GUIX-RESCUE.org
> > 
> > so you have an idea what I am talking about.
> > 
> > Unfortunately I am now getting an le-certs error on guix pull:
> > 
> >   guix pull: error: build failed: opening file `/gnu/store/cm5gjbfkps9g18z6a49shk55ai9101nk-le-certs-0.drv': No such file or directory
> > 
> > This is the case with guix-daemon and client versions 0.14xx and 0.15.
> > 
> > Any idea? Should that not be part of guix archive guix.nar then? Even
> > so, it does not matter which version I run. Also after installing guix
> > with
> > 
> >   guix package -i guix
> > 
> > Pj.
> > 
> > On Sat, Jul 07, 2018 at 02:17:12PM +0200, Pjotr Prins wrote:
> > > Is it an idea to also have a current Guix archive on the download
> > > page? Or at least a link to one?
> > > 
> > >    https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/download/
> > > 
> > > Ever so often I need to rescue a running Guix system which won't run
> > > guix pull and even a build-from-source quickly. Being able to do
> > > 
> > >    guix archive --import < guix-latest.nar
> > > 
> > > or something similar would be rather convenient. 
> > 
> 

Re: guix pull le-certs problem - formerly: Having a Guix archive

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Hi Pjotr,

> On another host it is working. Not sure why below particular host is
> failing, but it looks to me when you want to install le-certs it
> should just do it ;)

Could it be that there is disk corruption on that host?  You can try to
repair the store with “guix gc --verify=repair,contents”.

-- 
Ricardo

Re: Having a Guix archive on the download page?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Pjotr,

Pjotr Prins <pjotr.public12@thebird.nl> skribis:

> Is it an idea to also have a current Guix archive on the download
> page? Or at least a link to one?
>
>    https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/download/
>
> Ever so often I need to rescue a running Guix system which won't run
> guix pull and even a build-from-source quickly. Being able to do
>
>    guix archive --import < guix-latest.nar
>
> or something similar would be rather convenient. 

FWIW, this is in essence what the new ‘guix pull’ attempts to do with
the help of substitutes.

Problems about missing dependencies leading to unusable ‘guix pull’
(lack of Guile-Git, Guile-SQLite3, etc.) should now be gone because
‘guix pull’ now pulls Guix *and* its dependencies, which was not the
case before.

Now the question is, will it always be possible to run ‘guix pull’ from
an arbitrary-old Guix?  Maybe it will still be impossible sometimes if
the old Guix is really too old.  However, I suspect such issues will be
much more rare.  There’s essentially a single file that needs to be put
under scrutiny to avoid such issues: build-aux/build-self.scm.

An archive like you suggest could be useful in those hopefully rare
cases where things break, so it’s a good idea.

Ludo’.

Re: Having a Guix archive on the download page?

[Pjotr Prins]

On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 02:55:45PM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> Now the question is, will it always be possible to run ‘guix pull’ from
> an arbitrary-old Guix?  Maybe it will still be impossible sometimes if
> the old Guix is really too old.  However, I suspect such issues will be
> much more rare.  There’s essentially a single file that needs to be put
> under scrutiny to avoid such issues: build-aux/build-self.scm.

I think we should have a rescue mode. The nar does not have to
be visible on the main download page, but maybe on a rescue page in
the manual? A rescue nar would always work. 

At this point none of my systems runs guix pull any longer. Even
getting a build system (from guix) to build the tree is problematic. I
realise it may be less of an issue in the future... Mind that, even
now, if you change the database layout (e.g. with a source install)
guix pull may break. We could have specific rescue nars that go with
database versions. That also frees you to change the database :). Call
it a transition/rescue nar on time points where things can break. 

The change to guile2 was such a break, guile-json/tls another and now the
new guix pull come to mind. That was dependencies only. We know we are
going to change the database in the future...

> An archive like you suggest could be useful in those hopefully rare
> cases where things break, so it’s a good idea.

It should be easy to generate when we do a new release, similar to the
binary image, right? We only need a rescue when there is a breaking
change, however. They do happen.

Pj.

Re: Having a Guix archive on the download page?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello,

And sorry for the delay.

Pjotr Prins <pjotr.public12@thebird.nl> skribis:

> On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 02:55:45PM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> Now the question is, will it always be possible to run ‘guix pull’ from
>> an arbitrary-old Guix?  Maybe it will still be impossible sometimes if
>> the old Guix is really too old.  However, I suspect such issues will be
>> much more rare.  There’s essentially a single file that needs to be put
>> under scrutiny to avoid such issues: build-aux/build-self.scm.

[...]

> The change to guile2 was such a break, guile-json/tls another

Like I wrote, this specific class of problem disappears with the new
‘guix pull’.

> That was dependencies only. We know we are going to change the
> database in the future...

FWIW the database format for /var/guix/db/db.sqlite has always been the
same in Guix.

Ludo’.

Re: Having a Guix archive on the download page?

[EuAndreh]

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ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> Now the question is, will it always be possible to run ‘guix pull’ from
> an arbitrary-old Guix?  Maybe it will still be impossible sometimes if
> the old Guix is really too old.

Isn't this already possible?

If moving from Guix version 0.15 to 0.18, one can upgrade step by step
in each version separately:

guix pull --branch=0.16.0
guix pull --branch=0.17.0
guix pull # already pre-latest

This is even possible with Guix versions before the '--branch' option,
using '--url' instead.

As long as Guix can upgrade itself from each version, this should work
for any version upgrade.

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