Re: add a substitute server and thoughts for improvement

["pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)" <pelzflorian@pelzflorian.de>]

Hello Gottfried.

On Sun, Apr 10, 2022 at 09:50:31AM +0000, Gottfried wrote:
> 
> Would somebody be so kind and show me this part of his /etc/config.scm
> 
> file in order to know where and what I should put there, so that I can
> 
> add "bordeaus-guix.gnu.org as a substitute serve?
> 
> I checked the manual, but I am not able to do it on my own.

It is likely that you already have enabled bordeaux.  Using a
substitute server requires two things:

That guix-daemon or alternatively each guix command be started with
--substitute-urls='https://url_of_substitute_server'.  bordeaux is
enabled by default here according to the manual.  (Although it can be
disabled in config.scm.)

That the substitute server is authorized, i.e. that /etc/guix/acl
contains its public key.  For bordeaux, that is

(public-key
 (ecc
  (curve Ed25519)
  (q #7D602902D3A2DBB83F8A0FB98602A754C5493B0B778C8D1DD4E0F41DE14DE34F#)
  )
 )

It is likely that your /etc/guix/acl contains these lines already.  If
not, doing a full text search for bordeaux (i.e. typing /bordeaux in
`info guix.de`) says that the lines can be added by running as root
the command

guix archive --authorize < \
     ~root/.config/guix/current/share/guix/bordeaux.guix.gnu.org.pub

However this assumes that you have run `guix pull` as root before,
otherwise the path needs to be changed to your user name

sudo guix archive --authorize < \
     ~yourusername/.config/guix/current/share/guix/bordeaux.guix.gnu.org.pub


> could not a developer of guix add options:
> 
> 1. that we are warned about it (that a substitue is not available at the
> moment)
> 2. that there are options to cancel upgrading one ore more packages
> 3. that approx. so much time it needs to build the source of a package (if
> that is possible)
> 4. a question, if I want to use a different substitute server, and if yes
> 5. an info if on that different substitute server this substitute is
> available,
> 6. and if not, to cancel this ore more specific package to upgrade.
> 
> Guixers could still add other options, which I am not aware of it at the
> moment.

These are difficult questions and similar questions have been asked in
the past, for example

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2021-11/msg00129.html

I think there is no consensus on what this should look like.


> Do guix developers read our questions or do we have to send it to a specific
> email address?
> 
> Gottfried

Some developers read help-guix, some read only guix-devel, some read
the #guix IRC chat, and there is too much mail to read everything.

Regards,
Florian