Re: Guix on clusters and in HPC

[Roel Janssen <roel@gnu.org>]

Ricardo Wurmus writes:

> Roel Janssen <roel@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> * Network-aware guix-daemon
>>
>>   From a user's point of view it would be cool to have a network-aware
>>   guix-daemon.  In our cluster, we have a shared storage, on which we have
>>   the store, but manipulating the store through guix-daemon is now limited
>>   to a single node (and a single request per profile).  Having `guix' talk
>>   with `guix-daemon' over a network allows users to install stuff from
>>   any node, instead of a specific node.
>
> That’s on the list as
>
>       * client needs to be able to [[http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=20381][connect remotely]] instead of using [[http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=20381#5][‘socat’ hack]]
>
> I’m currently using the socat hack at the MDC with a wrapper to make it
> seamless for the users.
>
>> * Profile management
>>
>>   The abstraction of profiles is an awesome feature of FPM, but the user
>>   interface is missing.  We could do better here.
>>
>>   Switch the default profile
>>   (and prepend values of environment variables to the current values):
>>   $ guix profile --switch=/path/to/shared/profile
>
> This could be a wrapper doing essentially this:
>
>     bash  # sub-shell
>     source /path/to/shared/profile/etc/profile
>     …
>
>>   Reset to default profile (and environment variable values without the
>>   profile we just unset):
>>   $ guix profile --reset
>
> Using the above wrapper it would be equivalent to just:
>
>     exit  # exit the sub-shell
>
> Does this make sense or is more needed here?
> We’re using the above workflow at the MDC.  It’s a little verbose and
> requires users to keep track of the shell in which they are operating,
> but this basically works.  Would be nice to abstract this away and hide
> it behind a nicer user interface (e.g. “guix environment save” and “guix
> environment load”).

Well, I envisioned that `guix profile --switch' would actually change
the symlink `$HOME/.guix-profile' to another profile, so that it applies
to all shells you start after you provide the command.  But maybe `guix
environment' would be better suited anyway.

Kind regards,
Roel Janssen