consider setting the necessary environment variables

consider setting the necessary environment variables

[Thomas Bennett]

Hello Guix community,

I have an issue where my root user seems to be unable to have its 
environment set.

As advised, I put the following lines at the end of my shell rc file

(as root, using bash)

# tail /root/.bashrc
[...]

GUIX_PROFILE="/root/.config/guix/current"
. "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"

And it is correctly registered since:

# echo $GUIX_PROFILE
/root/.config/guix/current

However, the problem is I can install packages but I'm not able to use 
them. For instance with bat binary:

root@brain ~# guix package -i bat
The following package will be upgraded: bat (dependencies or package 
changed)

The following derivation will be built:
     /gnu/store/mwznz6gqq4lrxl5pmql8mxixcmhmnnfy-profile.drv

building CA certificate bundle...
listing Emacs sub-directories...
building fonts directory...
generating GdkPixbuf loaders cache...
generating GLib schema cache...
creating GTK+ icon theme cache...
building cache files for GTK+ input methods...
|building directory of Info manuals...
building XDG desktop file cache...
building XDG MIME database...
building profile with 4 packages...
hint: Consider setting the necessary environment variables by running:

     GUIX_PROFILE="/root/.guix-prof
     . "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"

Alternately, see `guix package --search-paths -p "/root/.guix-profile"'.

# guix package --search-paths -p "/root/.guix-profile"
export PATH="/root/.guix-profile/bin:/root/.guix-profile/sbin"
export EMACSLOADPATH="/root/.guix-profile/share/emacs/site-lisp"
export INFOPATH="/root/.guix-profile/share/info"

root@brain /home/tomi# bat
bash: bat: command not found

When doing a full system upgrade with guix pull and guix package -u, 
everything seems to operate fine and at the end, the message

hint: Consider setting the necessary environment variables by running:

     GUIX_PROFILE="/root/.guix-profile"
     . "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"

Alternately, see `guix package --search-paths -p "/root/.guix-profile"'.

appears.

I tried to manually source "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile" but it's no better.


Thank you for your help,

Thomas

Re: consider setting the necessary environment variables

[Carlo Zancanaro]

Hi Thomas,

On Sun, Mar 17 2024, Thomas Bennett wrote:
> I have an issue where my root user seems to be unable to have its
> environment set.

That sounds annoying! Hopefully we can figure out what's going wrong for
you. 🙂

> # tail /root/.bashrc
> [...]
>
> GUIX_PROFILE="/root/.config/guix/current"
> . "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"

This sets the GUIX_PROFILE variable to the current Guix profile. This
adds the "guix" command to your PATH, but not any of your installed
packages.

There are two main profiles that you need to source. One if the current
Guix profile, in $HOME/.config/guix/current, and the other is your
user's package profile, in $HOME/.guix-profile.

The former is suggested when you run "guix pull", and the latter is
suggested when you run "guix package" commands (including shorthands
like "guix install"). We can see this in your output:

> root@brain ~# guix package -i bat
> [...]
> hint: Consider setting the necessary environment variables by running:
>
>     GUIX_PROFILE="/root/.guix-profile
>     . "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"
>
> Alternately, see `guix package --search-paths -p "/root/.guix-profile"'.

You mention:

> I tried to manually source "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile" but it's no
> better.

but it's not clear whether you set GUIX_PROFILE to /root/.guix-profile
before doing so.

Can you try using this as your Guix initialisation code in your shell?

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
GUIX_PROFILE="$HOME/.guix-profile"
. "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"
GUIX_PROFILE="$HOME/.config/guix/current"
. "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"
unset GUIX_PROFILE
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

As an additional gotcha that might cause problems for you in future: the
usual advice in Guix is to source your profiles in .bash_profile rather
than .bashrc.  This allows "guix shell" to source .bashrc in a --pure
environment without also including your entire user profile.

Carlo

Re: consider setting the necessary environment variables

[Thomas Bennett]

Hello Carlo,

Well after a while, I finally manage to take the time to deal with that 
issue.

And... thank you very much! Indeed, I had only one profile set instead 
of two.

I added the second and everything works like a charm.

On 2024-03-17 20:31, Carlo Zancanaro wrote:
> Hi Thomas,
>
> On Sun, Mar 17 2024, Thomas Bennett wrote:
>> I have an issue where my root user seems to be unable to have its
>> environment set.
> That sounds annoying! Hopefully we can figure out what's going wrong for
> you. 🙂
>
>> # tail /root/.bashrc
>> [...]
>>
>> GUIX_PROFILE="/root/.config/guix/current"
>> . "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"
> This sets the GUIX_PROFILE variable to the current Guix profile. This
> adds the "guix" command to your PATH, but not any of your installed
> packages.
>
> There are two main profiles that you need to source. One if the current
> Guix profile, in $HOME/.config/guix/current, and the other is your
> user's package profile, in $HOME/.guix-profile.
>
> The former is suggested when you run "guix pull", and the latter is
> suggested when you run "guix package" commands (including shorthands
> like "guix install"). We can see this in your output:
>
>> root@brain ~# guix package -i bat
>> [...]
>> hint: Consider setting the necessary environment variables by running:
>>
>>      GUIX_PROFILE="/root/.guix-profile
>>      . "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"
>>
>> Alternately, see `guix package --search-paths -p "/root/.guix-profile"'.
> You mention:
>
>> I tried to manually source "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile" but it's no
>> better.
> but it's not clear whether you set GUIX_PROFILE to /root/.guix-profile
> before doing so.
>
> Can you try using this as your Guix initialisation code in your shell?
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> GUIX_PROFILE="$HOME/.guix-profile"
> . "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"
> GUIX_PROFILE="$HOME/.config/guix/current"
> . "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"
> unset GUIX_PROFILE
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> As an additional gotcha that might cause problems for you in future: the
> usual advice in Guix is to source your profiles in .bash_profile rather
> than .bashrc.  This allows "guix shell" to source .bashrc in a --pure
> environment without also including your entire user profile.
I moved the profiles configurations in~/.bash_profile as you mentionned 
and removed it from ~/.bashrc, thank for that as well.

Your help was precious.

Best,
Thomas
>
> Carlo