GSoC project ideas

GSoC project ideas

[Ludovic Courtès]

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Hello Guix!

GNU has applied as an organization to participate in Google’s Summer of
Code program again (see below.)

I see several Guix-related topics that we could propose:

  • Porting Guix to the Hurd, like last year (Manolis had applied for it
    last year but we didn’t get the slot because of miscommunication.)

  • Using GNUnet to distribute substitutes (same topic as last year,
    under the assumption that GNUnet’s status makes it feasible, which I
    haven’t checked yet.)

  • Writing a DHCP client library in Guile Scheme, possibly augmenting
    the socket API in Guile itself.  The idea is that it would allow us
    to have better integration of the DHCP service in dmd.

Any other ideas come to mind?  Thoughts?

Thanks,
Ludo’.


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From: jemarch@gnu.org (Jose E. Marchesi)
To: summer-of-code@gnu.org
Subject: GNU in GSOC 2015 - Application sent
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2015 14:53:16 +0100
Message-ID: <877fvftjg3.fsf@gnu.org>


Hi hackers!

We just sent our application to this year Google Summer of Code program.
Crossing fingers...  we will announce in this mailing list as soon as we
are notified that we are accepted, or rejected.

Now is the time of populating the ideas page at
http://www.gnu.org/s/soc-projects/ideas-2015.html

Please send to this list patches against ideas-2105.html (use the
previous years ideas pages at the obvious url for a template) containing
the list of ideas for your project.

It is ok to keep your own ideas page somewhere else: in that case please
send us its location so we can link it from the main page.

Salud!

Re: GSoC project ideas

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Ludovic Courtès writes:

> GNU has applied as an organization to participate in Google’s Summer of
> Code program again (see below.)
>
> I see several Guix-related topics that we could propose:

[...]

> Any other ideas come to mind?  Thoughts?

Could using Guile SSH for build offloading be made a project or is this
the scope not big enough?

This might also be extended to allow Guix clients to communicate with a
remote Guix daemon, all operating on a shared store.  This would be a
special case of offloading where the remote build machine is always used
and no local Guix daemon needs to run at all.

I'm suggesting this because it would enable users to manage their
profiles even in the restrictive case where they have no local
guix-daemon running and when the store is mounted read-only except on a
blessed build machine.

~~ Ricardo

Re: GSoC project ideas

[Ludovic Courtès]

Ricardo Wurmus <ricardo.wurmus@mdc-berlin.de> skribis:

> Could using Guile SSH for build offloading be made a project or is this
> the scope not big enough?

Not big enough I guess (and it’s partly done in wip-guile-ssh, the
missing bits being mostly in Guile-SSH itself.)

> This might also be extended to allow Guix clients to communicate with a
> remote Guix daemon, all operating on a shared store.  This would be a
> special case of offloading where the remote build machine is always used
> and no local Guix daemon needs to run at all.

Too small, I think.

It just occurred to me that this may be possible to solve it simply with
‘socat’.

On the machine that runs guix-daemon, run:

  socat TCP4-LISTEN:9999 UNIX:/var/guix/daemon-socket/socket

On the other one, run:

  socat UNIX-LISTEN:$PWD/foo TCP4:the-other-machine:9999 &
  export GUIX_DAEMON_SOCKET=$PWD/foo

Does it work for you?

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: GSoC project ideas

[Manolis Ragkousis]

Good morning Guix,
Good morning Ludo,

If there aren't any objections I would really like to apply again this year
and work on the hurd port as a GSoC project. WDYT?

Manolis

Re: GSoC project ideas

[Ludovic Courtès]

Another idea:

  • Support the syntax and semantics of systemd unit files in dmd.
    Use cgroups in dmd.

Ludo’.

Re: GSoC project ideas

[Ludovic Courtès]

Manolis Ragkousis <manolis837@gmail.com> skribis:

> If there aren't any objections I would really like to apply again this year
> and work on the hurd port as a GSoC project. WDYT?

Of course, you’re the obvious candidate for this task!

Ludo’.

Re: GSoC project ideas

[Thompson, David]

On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 10:45 AM, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
>
> Any other ideas come to mind?

How about adding container support to 'guix system'?  There are some
good problems to be solved there.

- Dave

Re: GSoC project ideas

[Ludovic Courtès]

"Thompson, David" <dthompson2@worcester.edu> skribis:

> On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 10:45 AM, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
>>
>> Any other ideas come to mind?
>
> How about adding container support to 'guix system'?  There are some
> good problems to be solved there.

What do you have in mind exactly?  (“Container” is often used with
subtly different meanings it seems.)

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: GSoC project ideas

[David Thompson]

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

> "Thompson, David" <dthompson2@worcester.edu> skribis:
>
>> On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 10:45 AM, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> Any other ideas come to mind?
>>
>> How about adding container support to 'guix system'?  There are some
>> good problems to be solved there.
>
> What do you have in mind exactly?  (“Container” is often used with
> subtly different meanings it seems.)

I mean container in the sense that Docker[0] has popularized.  Instead
of deploying a system on a VM, you could deploy it to a "container" on a
host system, which isolates the system via Linux's cgroups and kernel
namespaces.  Nix supports installing systems in these sorts of
containers via systemd-nspawn.  We'd have to write our own tool, as
discussed in a thread a few months back.

Does this help?

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docker_%28software%29

-- 
David Thompson
Web Developer - Free Software Foundation - http://fsf.org
GPG Key: 0FF1D807
Support the FSF: https://fsf.org/donate

Re: GSoC project ideas

[Ludovic Courtès]

David Thompson <dthompson2@worcester.edu> skribis:

> Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> "Thompson, David" <dthompson2@worcester.edu> skribis:
>>
>>> On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 10:45 AM, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Any other ideas come to mind?
>>>
>>> How about adding container support to 'guix system'?  There are some
>>> good problems to be solved there.
>>
>> What do you have in mind exactly?  (“Container” is often used with
>> subtly different meanings it seems.)
>
> I mean container in the sense that Docker[0] has popularized.  Instead
> of deploying a system on a VM, you could deploy it to a "container" on a
> host system, which isolates the system via Linux's cgroups and kernel
> namespaces.  Nix supports installing systems in these sorts of
> containers via systemd-nspawn.  We'd have to write our own tool, as
> discussed in a thread a few months back.
>
> Does this help?

Yes, thanks for clarifying.  It sounds like a good idea.  Could you
write a few lines on this to add to the GSoC ideas page?

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: GSoC project ideas

[David Thompson]

Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:

> Could you write a few lines on this to add to the GSoC ideas page?

How is this?

<h4 id="guix_containers">Linux container support</h4>

<p>
  GNU Guix currently supports the installation of GuixSD on virtual
  machines and physical hosts.  The goal of this project would be to
  add another installation target: containers.  A container is an
  environment that is similar to a virtual machine but without the
  overhead that comes with running a separate kernel and simulating
  hardware.  Containers are isolated on a host system through Linux's
  control groups and kernel namespaces.
</p>

-- 
David Thompson
Web Developer - Free Software Foundation - http://fsf.org
GPG Key: 0FF1D807
Support the FSF: https://fsf.org/donate

Re: GSoC project ideas

[Ludovic Courtès]

David Thompson <dthompson2@worcester.edu> skribis:

> Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> Could you write a few lines on this to add to the GSoC ideas page?
>
> How is this?

Perfect!  I’ll send it to José along with the GNUnet one.

Thanks,
Ludo’.