Re: 'guix system vm' questions

["Thompson, David" <dthompson2@worcester.edu>]

On Wed, Jun 29, 2016 at 2:57 AM, myglc2 <myglc2@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a headless server running Guix/Debian 8.3 on which I would like
> to run some guix vms. So far, I have a script (see mkvm.sh, attached)
> that runs a single vm. It has some issues:
>
> 1) lsh-service hangs waiting for keystrokes on the QEMU console

LSH needs to be initialized with a key on first boot, which is why you
need to type to create entropy.  This sucks for automation, so I would
recommend OpenSSH instead, but we don't have an openssh-service yet.

> 2) passwords need to be set in the QEMU console

What is the QEMU console?  If you mean user passwords, it is possible
to specify the hashed password in a user account in your OS config
file, IIRC.

> 3) on the vm, 'guix package -i' throws an error, e.g.,
>
>    (on the console)
>    v1 login: u1
>    password: <password>
>    $ guix package -i
>    accepted connection from pid 390, user u1
>    guix package: error: build failed: changing ownership of '/path/store': Read-only file system

The VMs created with 'guix system vm' are immutable.  Copying the
result of 'guix system vm-image' is probably what you want.

> 4) I can't log in to the vm like I expected, e.g. 'ssh u1@10.0.2.15'
>    times out

Sounds like you have a QEMU networking issue to figure out.  Doesn't
seem related to Guix at all.

> 5) I would like to have the user 'u1' share read/write access to the
>    $HOME directory and be able to use $HOME/.ssh credentials

Once you have a writable disk image, you can just write files to the
home directory as you please.  GuixSD does not manage files in
stateful directories like $HOME.

HTH,

- Dave