Re: offload: error: failed to connect to `#<input-output... Protocol error

[Matthew Brooks <matthewfbrooks@mailbox.org>]

>          (string-append (getenv "HOME")
>                         "/.ssh/identity-for-guix"))))
>...
>
> ERROR] The file does not exist or permission denied:
> "/root/.ssh/identity-for-guix"


The SSH connection is to a regular user on the offload machine. In your example, it is configured to connect to the "simon" account on the offload machine, in the '(user "simon")' part.

The issue is that the guix daemon runs as root, so when it evaluates '(getenv "home")' it points to root's home and not the user's home (thus it looking for the file in "/root/"). If the "identity-for-guix" file is in "/home/simon/.ssh/identity-for-guix", then you must specify that whole path, or specify that you mean the home path for some other user in the (getenv) part. I do not know how to specify someone else's home with getenv though, so I'd suggest that you try manually entering the full path to see if that works.