QEmu image configuration

QEmu image configuration

[Vincent Legoll]

Hello,

I've been trying to find the system config.scm used to
generate the QEmu image (0.16.0 from the download
page). I searched inside the booted VM, and tried to
get clues from the documentation. I couldn't find it.

What am I missing ?

Shouldn't it be put in the VM image at /etc/config.scm ?

I finally managed to get the image working, but had to
guess a bit how to do it, I think the doc could be enhanced,
so that newbies like me won't get lost.

I tried to have a look at where is the source for :
"6.2.14 Running GuixSD in a Virtual Machine"
But the guix/doc/guix.texi text I found in the git repo
looked different from what I read on the web site:
https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Running-GuixSD-in-a-VM.html

Are they out of sync ? Or is the web manual rendered
from an older version of that file ?

Thanks

-- 
Vincent Legoll

Re: QEmu image configuration

[Chris Marusich]

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Vincent Legoll <vincent.legoll@gmail.com> writes:

> Hello,
>
> I've been trying to find the system config.scm used to
> generate the QEmu image (0.16.0 from the download
> page). I searched inside the booted VM, and tried to
> get clues from the documentation. I couldn't find it.
>
> What am I missing ?
>
> Shouldn't it be put in the VM image at /etc/config.scm ?

If you build the image from a very recent version of Guix's source, it
should be there, now (see below).

> I finally managed to get the image working, but had to
> guess a bit how to do it, I think the doc could be enhanced,
> so that newbies like me won't get lost.
>
> I tried to have a look at where is the source for :
> "6.2.14 Running GuixSD in a Virtual Machine"
> But the guix/doc/guix.texi text I found in the git repo
> looked different from what I read on the web site:
> https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Running-GuixSD-in-a-VM.html
>
> Are they out of sync ? Or is the web manual rendered
> from an older version of that file ?

The website is synced periodically.  I think we keep the website synced
to the latest release, so that when you download the latest release, the
documentation you read on the website is precisely for the version of
Guix that you downloaded.  If you update Guix later on, you should refer
to the documentation that gets installed in your OS, rather than the
website.  You can access it with a Texinfo reader, for example by
invoking "info guix" on the command line or "C-h i" followed by "guix"
in Emacs.

It may not be exactly the same version that was used to build the
version available on the website, but you can find an up-to-date version
of the VM image's OS configuration at
'./gnu/system/examples/vm-image.tmpl' in the Guix source:

http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/gnu/system/examples/vm-image.tmpl?id=aa7cdc57dc28673dedfc6ec210974aaa0099a419

It's been recently changed as a result of this discussion:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2019-04/msg00540.html

You may need to customize the qemu invocation you use to start it.
Something like the following ought to work (I haven't tested this,
though):

  qemu-system-x86_64 -net user \
                     -net nic,model=virtio \
                     -enable-kvm \
                     -m 1024 \
                     -device virtio-blk,drive=myhd \
                     -drive if=none,file=/tmp/the_image,id=myhd

For details of QEMU's invocation.  I hope that helps!

-- 
Chris

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Re: QEmu image configuration

[Vincent Legoll]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 5:49 AM Chris Marusich <cmmarusich@gmail.com> wrote:
> Vincent Legoll <vincent.legoll@gmail.com> writes:
> > Shouldn't it be put in the VM image at /etc/config.scm ?
>
> If you build the image from a very recent version of Guix's source, it
> should be there, now (see below).

OK, thanks for the info, now that 1.0 is out, i'll retry with that one.

> > I finally managed to get the image working, but had to
> > guess a bit how to do it, I think the doc could be enhanced,
> > so that newbies like me won't get lost.
> >
> > I tried to have a look at where is the source for :
> > "6.2.14 Running GuixSD in a Virtual Machine"
> > But the guix/doc/guix.texi text I found in the git repo
> > looked different from what I read on the web site:
> > https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Running-GuixSD-in-a-VM.html
> >
> > Are they out of sync ? Or is the web manual rendered
> > from an older version of that file ?
>
> The website is synced periodically.  I think we keep the website synced
> to the latest release, so that when you download the latest release, the
> documentation you read on the website is precisely for the version of
> Guix that you downloaded.  If you update Guix later on, you should refer
> to the documentation that gets installed in your OS, rather than the
> website.  You can access it with a Texinfo reader, for example by
> invoking "info guix" on the command line or "C-h i" followed by "guix"
> in Emacs.

Again thanks, that's what I was thinking, but needed confirmation, I'll
see if something is still missing from the latest vesion, and send a
patch in that case.

> It may not be exactly the same version that was used to build the
> version available on the website, but you can find an up-to-date version
> of the VM image's OS configuration at
> './gnu/system/examples/vm-image.tmpl' in the Guix source:

Perfect, thanks for all and congrats for the reached milestone !

-- 
Vincent Legoll