Do you guix pull for the root account on a single user machine running Guix System if the root user is never used?

Do you guix pull for the root account on a single user machine running Guix System if the root user is never used?

[Oleander via]

According to the manual:

https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/After-System-Installation.html

> From then on, you can update the system whenever you want by running,
> say: `guix pull && sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm `

Then the manual also notes:

> guix pull updates the guix command and package definitions only for
> the user it is run as. This means that if you choose to use guix
> system reconfigure in root’s login shell, you’ll need to guix pull
> separately.

If I understood everything correctly, on a single user machine running
Guix SD, if the root user is never used to run any command, it's
not necessary to also run sudo -i guix pull or #guix pull. Is this
correct?

Re: Do you guix pull for the root account on a single user machine running Guix System if the root user is never used?

[Raghav Gururajan]

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Hello!

On a single-user machine where the user has superuser privileges (wheel 
group), it's not required to use 'root' for guix pull and guix system 
configure. You can do `guix pull` and then `sudo guix system reconfigure 
/etc/config.scm`; as regular user.

Regards,
Raghav "RG" Gururajan.


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Re: Do you guix pull for the root account on a single user machine running Guix System if the root user is never used?

[Raghav Gururajan]

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Hello!

On a single-user machine where the user has superuser privileges (wheel 
group), it's not required to use 'root' for guix pull and guix system 
configure. You can do `guix pull` and then `sudo guix system reconfigure 
/etc/config.scm`; as regular user.

Regards,
Raghav "RG" Gururajan.


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Re: Do you guix pull for the root account on a single user machine running Guix System if the root user is never used?

[Oleander via]

> -------- Original Message -------- On Aug 16, 2024, 22:52, Raghav
> Gururajan < rg@raghavgururajan.name> wrote:
> Hello! On a single-user machine where the user has superuser
> privileges (wheel group), it's not required to use 'root' for guix
> pull and guix system configure. You can do `guix pull` and then `sudo
> guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm`; as regular user. Regards,
> Raghav "RG" Gururajan.

Hi Raghav, thanks for your quick reply!

I know that root is not required to run guix pull and and sudo guix
system reconfigure. Is it also not necessary to update the root
definitions on Guix System?

Re: Do you guix pull for the root account on a single user machine running Guix System if the root user is never used?

[Raghav Gururajan]

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Hi Oleander!

> I know that root is not required to run guix pull and and sudo guix
> system reconfigure. Is it also not necessary to update the root
> definitions on Guix System?

That's correct. It's not necessary to keep guix definitions updated in 
`root` profile, on single-user machine where the regular user has 
superuser privileges. This is because, when you system reconfigure as 
regular user using sudo, the guix in regular user's profile is used and 
not the guix in root's profile.

The only scenario I could think of - where you gotta keep guix in root's 
profile updated is - on multi-user machine where no regular user has 
superuser privileges and the system administration is done via root. But 
even in that scenario, I think it's a better practice to create a 
regular user with superuser privileges for an admin to perform system 
administration using sudo.

Regards,
Raghav "RG" Gururajan.


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Re: Do you guix pull for the root account on a single user machine running Guix System if the root user is never used?

[Raghav Gururajan]

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Oleander!

>> I know that root is not required to run guix pull and and sudo guix
>> system reconfigure. Is it also not necessary to update the root
>> definitions on Guix System?
> 
> That's correct. It's not necessary to keep guix definitions updated in 
> `root` profile, on single-user machine where the regular user has 
> superuser privileges. This is because, when you system reconfigure as 
> regular user using sudo, the guix in regular user's profile is used and 
> not the guix in root's profile.
> 
> The only scenario I could think of - where you gotta keep guix in root's 
> profile updated is - on multi-user machine where no regular user has 
> superuser privileges and the system administration is done via root. But 
> even in that scenario, I think it's a better practice to create a 
> regular user with superuser privileges for an admin to perform system 
> administration using sudo.

Forgot to mention something. You can test it yourself by doing `which 
guix` and `sudo which guix` AND/OR `guix -V` and `sudo guix -V`. The 
output of them will be same because the root profile isn't used.

Regards,
Raghav "RG" Gururajan.


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Re: Do you guix pull for the root account on a single user machine running Guix System if the root user is never used?

[Oleander via]

Got it. Thank you Raghav!

-------- Original Message --------
On Aug 18, 2024, 11:15, Raghav Gururajan wrote:

> Oleander! >> I know that root is not required to run guix pull and and sudo guix >> system reconfigure. Is it also not necessary to update the root >> definitions on Guix System? > > That's correct. It's not necessary to keep guix definitions updated in > `root` profile, on single-user machine where the regular user has > superuser privileges. This is because, when you system reconfigure as > regular user using sudo, the guix in regular user's profile is used and > not the guix in root's profile. > > The only scenario I could think of - where you gotta keep guix in root's > profile updated is - on multi-user machine where no regular user has > superuser privileges and the system administration is done via root. But > even in that scenario, I think it's a better practice to create a > regular user with superuser privileges for an admin to perform system > administration using sudo. Forgot to mention something. You can test it yourself by doing `which guix` and `sudo which guix` AND/OR `guix -V` and `sudo guix -V`. The output of them will be same because the root profile isn't used. Regards, Raghav "RG" Gururajan.