Re: Installing Guix on Linode: a how-to

[jbranso@dismail.de]

I will volunteer to add this to the guix cookbook. If I don't send a patch in a week or so, then
that means I got lazy and decided not to do it.

July 8, 2020 7:57 PM, "Gary Johnson" <lambdatronic@disroot.org> wrote:

> Can someone add this tutorial to the Guix Cookbook? I've been wondering
> about how to do this for some time now, and it would be great to have it
> saved somewhere obvious like that for future reference.
> 
> Thanks,
> Gary
> 
> Christopher Lemmer Webber <cwebber@dustycloud.org> writes:
> 
>> Hi! I finally got Guix running on Linode! I'm excited about it!
>> Here's the process (thanks to jackhill on freenode for helping me figure
>> out all the stuff involving the bootloader!). It's very bullet-point'y,
>> but here's the steps I took:
>> 
>> - Start with a Debian (or whatever) server. Be sure to add your ssh
>> key for easy login. We'll be using the default distro as a way to
>> bootstrap Guix.
>> - Power it down.
>> - In the Disks/Configurations tab, resize the Debian disk to be
>> smaller, maybe 30GB or something.
>> - "Add a disk", with the following:
>> - Label: "Guix"
>> - Filesystem: ext4
>> - Set it to the remaining size
>> - Next to the "configuration" that comes with the default image,
>> press "..." and select "Edit", then on that menu add to
>> /dev/sdc the "Guix" label
>> - Now "Add a Configuration", with the following:
>> - Label: Guix
>> - VM Mode: Paravirtualization (the default?? don't know if this matters)
>> - Kernel: Grub 2 (it's at the bottom! This step is *IMPORTANT*)
>> - Block device assignment:
>> - /dev/sda: Guix
>> - /dev/sdb: swap
>> - Root device: /dev/sda
>> - Turn off all the filesystem/boot helpers
>> - Now power it back up, picking the Debian configuration
>> - Once it's booted up, ssh root@<your-server-ip-here>
>> - Run the "install guix form binary installer" steps:
>> - $ sudo apt-get install gpg
>> - $ wget https://sv.gnu.org/people/viewgpg.php?user_id=15145 -qO - | gpg --import -
>> - $ wget https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/plain/etc/guix-install.sh
>> - $ chmod +x guix-install.sh
>> - $ ./guix-install.sh
>> - $ guix pull
>> 
>> - Now it's time to write out a config for the server. The key stuff is
>> below, save as guix-config.scm:
>> 
>> #+BEGIN_SRC scheme
>> (use-modules (gnu)
>> (guix modules))
>> (use-service-modules networking
>> ssh)
>> (use-package-modules admin
>> certs
>> package-management
>> ssh
>> tls)
>> 
>> (operating-system
>> (host-name "my-server")
>> (timezone "America/New_York")
>> (locale "en_US.UTF-8")
>> ;; This goofy code will generate the grub.cfg
>> ;; without installing the grub bootloader on disk.
>> (bootloader (bootloader-configuration
>> (bootloader
>> (bootloader
>> (inherit grub-bootloader)
>> (installer #~(const #t))))))
>> (file-systems (cons (file-system
>> (device "/dev/sda")
>> (mount-point "/")
>> (type "ext4"))
>> %base-file-systems))
>> 
>> (initrd-modules (cons "virtio_scsi" ; Needed to find the disk
>> %base-initrd-modules))
>> 
>> (users (cons (user-account
>> (name "janedoe")
>> (group "users")
>> ;; Adding the account to the "wheel" group
>> ;; makes it a sudoer.
>> (supplementary-groups '("wheel"))
>> (home-directory "/home/janedoe"))
>> %base-user-accounts))
>> 
>> (packages (cons* nss-certs ;for HTTPS access
>> openssh-sans-x
>> %base-packages))
>> 
>> (services (cons*
>> (service dhcp-client-service-type)
>> (service openssh-service-type
>> (openssh-configuration
>> (openssh openssh-sans-x)
>> (password-authentication? #f)
>> (authorized-keys
>> `(("janedoe" ,(local-file "janedoe_rsa.pub"))
>> ;; Is this a good idea? Well if you don't add it
>> ;; you have to manually set your user's password
>> ;; via the glish console...
>> ("root" ,(local-file "janedoe_rsa.pub"))))))
>> %base-services)))
>> #+END_SRC
>> 
>> - Replace the following fields in the above configuration:
>> - (host-name "my-server") ; replace with your server name
>> - (name "janedoe") ; replace with your username
>> - ("janedoe" ,(local-file "janedoe_rsa.pub")) ; here too
>> - Note the same above for root, which I don't feel great about, but
>> otherwise you'll need to log in via the linode "glish" console to
>> log in as root and set the user's initial password before you can
>> start using sudo (is there another way around this?)
>> 
>> - Save your ssh public key (~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub) as
>> <your-username-here>_rsa.pub or whatever in the same directory
>> 
>> - Mount the guix drive:
>> $ mkdir /mnt/guix
>> $ mount /dev/sdc /mnt/guix
>> 
>> - Due to the way we set things up above, we don't install Grub
>> completely, just our grub configuration file. So we need to copy
>> over some of the other Grub stuff that's already there:
>> $ mkdir -p /mnt/guix/boot/grub
>> $ cp -r /boot/grub/* /mnt/guix/boot/grub/
>> 
>> - Now initialize the Guix installation:
>> $ guix system init guix-config.scm /mnt/guix
>> 
>> - Ok, power it down!
>> - Now from the linode console, select boot and select "Guix"
>> 
>> - Once it boots, you should be able to log in via ssh! (The server
>> config will have changed though.)
>> 
>> - Be sure to set your password and root's password.
>> 
>> - Horray! At this point you can shut down the server, delete the
>> Debian disk, and resize the Guix to the rest of the size.
>> Congratulations!
>> 
>> BTW, if you save it as a disk image right at this point, you'll have an
>> easy time spinning up new Guix images!
>> 
>> Let me know if this guide helps you!
> 
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