how to get info about system service?

how to get info about system service?

[Alexander Asteroth]

Dear all,

so far I had not installed `(service file-database-service-type)` 
in my system config.
Since I would like to have `locate` running I played a bit with 
`updatedb` but `locate` is very slow this way.
That's why I not included `(service file-database-service-type)` 
into my system, run `system reconfigure` and rebooted.

My question now is: how can I find out if the service is actually 
running `herd status` doesn't show anything about this service.
It's supposed to run `updatedb` as a cron job but how can I find 
this `crontab` entry?

What I would actually like to do is find out if the configuration 
is as I expect it and run this service now once now.

Thanks for any help.

Cheers
Alex

Re: how to get info about system service?

[Alexander Asteroth]

Dear Edouard,

Thanks a lot. That helped.

But - in my opinion - it also shows that there is something 
missing, if you can start a service via the system configuration 
but cannot get information about it other than by hand.

Cheers
Alex

On Mon, Dec 09 2024, 11:50:45, Edouard Klein <edou@rdklein.fr> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> From reading the source in gnu/services/admin.scm, it appears to be
> every monday:
>
>
> (define %default-package-database-update-schedule
>   ;; Default mcron schedule for the periodic 'guix locate --update' job: once
>   ;; every Monday.
>   "10 23 * * 1")
>
> It's an mcron job. I don't know the canonical way to inspect it, but
> what I did was:
>
> sudo herd status mcron
> Status of mcron:
>   It is running since 08:05:26 AM (4 hours ago).
>   Running value is 578.
>   It is enabled.
>   Provides (mcron).
>   Requires (user-processes).
>   Will be respawned.
>
> Then I inspect the command:
> cat /proc/578/cmdline
> /gnu/store/mfkz7fvlfpv3ppwbkv0imb19nrf95akf-guile-3.0.9/bin/guile--no-auto-compile/gnu/store/c9hmd29cqhl48s1xavlxyv7ay47zhyhz-mcron-1.2.3/bin/mcron--log--log-format~1@*~a
> ~a:
> ~a~%/gnu/store/hcz4n1fslal58kn3x6v08zzn9i7i1fxi-mcron-job/gnu/store/y2rzyajc9g8cfvc3a917y985r0c39pm1-mcron-job/gnu/store/9j61jj8qhi5wszlbdfk67v88s4d7mb12-mcron-job
>
> One of these mcron-job files in the store should be the one running
> "updatedb", I think you can extract the command line and run it
> manually.
>
> For example one of my job is:
> cat /gnu/store/hcz4n1fslal58kn3x6v08zzn9i7i1fxi-mcron-job
> (job "30 12 01,08,15,22 * *"
> "/gnu/store/zwhm4q7l9zwcl4vmbzybn2m5clqws3sg-delete-old-logs")
>
> I could then run
> /gnu/store/zwhm4q7l9zwcl4vmbzybn2m5clqws3sg-delete-old-logs manually.
>
>
> Somebody more versed in Guix than me may provide a better porcelain to
> inspect all of that.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Edouard.
>
> Alexander Asteroth <alexander.asteroth@h-brs.de> writes:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> so far I had not installed `(service file-database-service-type)` in my system
>> config.
>> Since I would like to have `locate` running I played a bit with `updatedb` but
>> `locate` is very slow this way.
>> That's why I not included `(service file-database-service-type)` into my system,
>> run `system reconfigure` and rebooted.
>>
>> My question now is: how can I find out if the service is actually running `herd
>> status` doesn't show anything about this service.
>> It's supposed to run `updatedb` as a cron job but how can I find this `crontab`
>> entry?
>>
>> What I would actually like to do is find out if the configuration is as I expect
>> it and run this service now once now.
>>
>> Thanks for any help.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Alex