"System Package" vs "System Service"

"System Package" vs "System Service"

[Raghav Gururajan]

Hello Guix!

I have this confusion/doubt. What is the difference between declaring
something as "System Package" vs "System Service" in the Guix System
Configuration?

For example, if I have application[s] (installed as user or in system)
that uses Tor to connect to Internet via Tor Network; is it better to
declare "tor" package under system packages (or install as user) or to
declare "tor-service-type" (with default configuration) under system
services? What actually happens between the former and latter scenario?

Thank you!

Regards,
RG.

Re: "System Package" vs "System Service"

[Danny Milosavljevic]

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Hi,

On Sun, 28 Apr 2019 11:59:59 -0400
Raghav Gururajan <rvgn@disroot.org> wrote:

> I have this confusion/doubt. What is the difference between declaring
> something as "System Package" vs "System Service" in the Guix System
> Configuration?

A package is a thing that is present in your system and just stays put,
similar to a chair or any other passive object.  If you want, you can
move the chair yourself or whatever, but it won't do things for you
except incidentially.

A service is an active process that, if you ask it to, will do work for you
in order to reach a long-term goal.  The level of detail you have to specify
when requesting the service is usually very low compared to what work will
actually be carried out.
For example a hairdressing service provides you the service of cutting
your hair to a fashionable style.

A chair and a hairdressing service are fundamentally different.

Tor usually provides a proxy service (at port 9050) which will proxy all
your network traffic through it, with the goal of improving your privacy.

It's difficult to see what you need the tor package to be installed for--
because the service will already provide the proxying.  If you want
tor admin tools, you can of course install those (probably as user
packages).

For reference, I have ten system packages in addition to %base-packages
(there are 40 in the latter currently) and I'm a heavy guix user.
If anything, I expect both counts to decrease over time.

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Re: "System Package" vs "System Service"

[Raghav Gururajan]

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Thank you very much for your clear explanation. I did add Tor Service
with Default Configuration to my system config; ans also added the user
to Tor group. But it seems that the traffic is not routed when I
checked with "check.torproject.org". What should I do?
On Sun, 2019-04-28 at 18:41 +0200, Danny Milosavljevic wrote:
> 
> Error verifying signature: Failed to execute gpg.
> Hi,
> On Sun, 28 Apr 2019 11:59:59 -0400Raghav Gururajan <rvgn@disroot.org>
> wrote:
> I have this confusion/doubt. What is the difference between
> declaringsomething as "System Package" vs "System Service" in the
> Guix SystemConfiguration?
> A package is a thing that is present in your system and just stays
> put,similar to a chair or any other passive object.  If you want, you
> canmove the chair yourself or whatever, but it won't do things for
> youexcept incidentially.
> A service is an active process that, if you ask it to, will do work
> for youin order to reach a long-term goal.  The level of detail you
> have to specifywhen requesting the service is usually very low
> compared to what work willactually be carried out.For example a
> hairdressing service provides you the service of cuttingyour hair to
> a fashionable style.
> A chair and a hairdressing service are fundamentally different.
> Tor usually provides a proxy service (at port 9050) which will proxy
> allyour network traffic through it, with the goal of improving your
> privacy.
> It's difficult to see what you need the tor package to be installed
> for--because the service will already provide the proxying.  If you
> wanttor admin tools, you can of course install those (probably as
> userpackages).
> For reference, I have ten system packages in addition to %base-
> packages(there are 40 in the latter currently) and I'm a heavy guix
> user.If anything, I expect both counts to decrease over time.

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Re: "System Package" vs "System Service"

[Chris Marusich]

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Raghav Gururajan <rvgn@disroot.org> writes:

> Thank you very much for your clear explanation. I did add Tor Service
> with Default Configuration to my system config; ans also added the user
> to Tor group. But it seems that the traffic is not routed when I
> checked with "check.torproject.org". What should I do?
> On Sun, 2019-04-28 at 18:41 +0200, Danny Milosavljevic wrote:

You need to configure your web browser (or whatever software you are
using to access check.torproject.org) to use the TOR proxy.

-- 
Chris

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