Server installation is incompatible with guix home

Server installation is incompatible with guix home

[MSavoritias]

Hello,


Trying to set up a server with guix home it appears to me after some 
research that there is no way to use guix home on a server.

What i mean is that:


- the server currently is set up with base services in its system config 
as you can see here 
https://codeberg.org/joinjabber/Infra/src/branch/main/System%20Declaration/system.scm

- and there is a persistent error appearing when somebody logs in that says:

warning: XDG_RUNTIME_DIR doesn't exists, on-first-login script
won't execute anything.  You can check if xdg runtime directory exists,
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR variable is set to appropriate value and manually 
execute the
script by running '$HOME/.guix-home/on-first-login'


this error comes from the service home-run-on-first-login which is a 
home service and is in base requirements of guix home as per the manual 
here: 
https://guix.gnu.org/en/manual/devel/en/html_node/Essential-Home-Services.html

it can only be extended. what this specific service is doing according 
to the code here 
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/gnu/home/services.scm#n409

is checking if the XDG_RUNTIME_DIR exists. which according to the manual 
if this is supposed to go away you need to:

*Note:* Make sure the operating system has elogind, systemd, or a 
similar mechanism to create the XDG run-time directory and has the 
|XDG_RUNTIME_DIR| variable set. Failing that, the on-first-login script 
will not execute anything, and processes like user Shepherd and its 
descendants will not start.


I tried to add just the elogind service to the system declaration but 
that changed nothing. Obviously the server doesn't need all of desktop 
services and removing stuff like gdm or bluetooth manually to reduce 
attack surface seems too much work to just have guix home not complain.

the guix home config is here: 
https://codeberg.org/joinjabber/Infra/src/branch/main/Home%20Declaration/home%20declaration.scm


So my Questions are:

1. Is there a way to remove or edit the on-first-login service? Or a way 
to make the warning disappear without installing all desktop services?

2. This seems like a bug. Is the intention of guix home to not work in a 
non desktop setting? if its supposed to work the first login service 
needs to be removed from base services.


MSavoritias

Re: Server installation is incompatible with guix home

[pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)]

Hello MSavoritias.

MSavoritias <email@msavoritias.me> writes:
> is checking if the XDG_RUNTIME_DIR exists. which according to the
> manual if this is supposed to go away you need to:
>
> *Note:* Make sure the operating system has elogind, systemd, or a
>  similar mechanism to create the XDG run-time directory and has the
>  |XDG_RUNTIME_DIR| variable set. Failing that, the on-first-login
>  script will not execute anything, and processes like user Shepherd
>  and its descendants will not start.
>
>
> I tried to add just the elogind service to the system declaration but
> that changed nothing.

I believe greetd would be enough.  Should we add greetd first in the
list?  However, it is strange that elogind does not work.

Regards,
Florian

Re: Server installation is incompatible with guix home

[Felix Lechner via]

Hi MSavoritias,

On Fri, Apr 12 2024, MSavoritias wrote:

> Is there [...] a way to make the warning disappear without installing
> all desktop services?

This seems to work for me. [1][2][3] Thanks to unbalanced-paren, who
gave it to me years ago!

There could be subtle differences in our home configurations.  Here are
mine. [4]

Kind regards
Felix

[1] https://codeberg.org/lechner/system-config/src/commit/db9edb46caf36fe15bc6f8abc5d1df184b6d5c5f/host/wallace-server/operating-system.scm#L1931-L1932
[2] https://codeberg.org/lechner/system-config/src/branch/history/services/desktop.scm
[3] https://codeberg.org/lechner/system-config/src/branch/history/services/greeter.scm
[4] https://codeberg.org/lechner/home-config