system reconfigure: rename-file: invalid cross-device link

system reconfigure: rename-file: invalid cross-device link

[Kenny Ballou]

Hello fellow Guix'ers,

I'm encountering a new error sometime after [[https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?id=28bc0e870b4d48b8e3e773382bb0e999df2e3611][28bc0e870b4d48b8]].

The elided output for the error:

#+begin_example
building /gnu/store/fmhhk62qagcg8jjfk6m2wzsnw8gyi6a0-switch-to-system.scm.drv...
making '/var/guix/profiles/system-79-link' the current system...
setting up setuid programs in '/run/setuid-programs'...
populating /etc from /gnu/store/jv2b1lgw3q2nhq6jl242c3vwh6s8szcj-etc...
guix system: error: rename-file: Invalid cross-device link
#+end_example

I have not had issues until trying to upgrade recently.  I don't believe my
configuration is all that exotic.  However, I do leverage several partitions
for each of the main mount points.  Namely, I have a 1GB root partition, with
additional partitions for ~/gnu~, ~/var~, ~/home~, etc.  The details can be seen in
my [[https://git.sr.ht/~kennyballou/dotfiles.git/][dotfiles]], specifically: [[https://git.sr.ht/~kennyballou/dotfiles.git/tree/master/item/systems/axo.scm][systems/axo.scm]].

Notice, this does not appear to affect home configurations, as I was able to
reconfigure/switch generations for my home configuration ([[https://git.sr.ht/~kennyballou/dotfiles.git/tree/master/item/homes/axo.scm][homes/axo.scm]]).

I first noticed this issue in commit [[https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?id=4d994f98a49e1a6e58b9b0b512a05efc1c431a50][4d994f98a49e1a6e58b9b0b512a05efc1c431a50]].
I haven't tried to bisect to see if there's an immediate culprit due to time.
Before I do that, I'm reaching out to see if anyone here may know what is
happening.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

-- 
Kenny

Re: system reconfigure: rename-file: invalid cross-device link

[Kenny Ballou]

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Connecting back to the list.

On 2024-04-18 21:19 -04, Connor Clark wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> I would like to say I'm having the same issue. My root filesystem is btrfs with 
> a similar layout (subvolumes at /var, /home, etc), though I also have an ext4 
> raid array of three other disks mounted at /srv.
>
> The problem started happening when I bumped my channel commit to 
> 0f9f266542e611bee277b5e593072318942ed643, working fine on 
> 16d2be641424815a1779119bb64bc6ba1be1161b. If we need to troubleshoot this 
> further I can provide some logs.
>
> p.s. I'm not too familiar with mailing lists. If this goes straight to the 
> individual who started the thread, sorry and please let me know.


The issue seems to stem from [[https://issues.guix.gnu.org/70165][this
bug]] with DBus.  I was able to work around it with some finagling.  I
"copied" some of the DBus files and rebooted.  I have another Guix
system I'll need to try this with and I can report back with some more
concrete steps.  Unfortunately, I have some deadlines I need to hit and
cannot be breaking things at the moment.

An alternative approach I was not able to get to work because I can't
quite figure out how to get bind mounts to work in Guix (even with the
[[https://guix.gnu.org/en/cookbook/en/html_node/Setting-up-a-bind-mount.html][cookbook]]):
bind mount a TMPFS for the set of paths.  That is, create a TMPFS for
~/run~ and then bind mount it to ~/var/run~, or vise versa, if you
prefer.  To do this, you likely will need to rollback (downgrade) to the
working revision.  Configure the new mounts.  Reboot.  Upgrade to the
new revision (which has a new version of DBus). ... Profit!

Hope that helps.


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-- 
-Kenny