How to share profile among machines ?

How to share profile among machines ?

[Emmanuel Medernach]

Hello Guix !

How do you share profiles among machines ? For instance 2 users wants to 
have the same profile, user A shares the directory 
/gnu/store/...-profile to user B, user B either get access to it 
directly or from a remote machine with a  "guix copy <profile>", user B 
could now use this profile like this:

  export GUIX_PROFILE="/gnu/store/...-profile"
  source "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"

But there is a problem: this profile is not listed with

  guix package --list-profiles
  guix gc --list-roots

The problem is that if user A deletes this profile it gets garbage 
collected even if user B still needs to use it.

So the question is: How user B could add an existing 
/gnu/store/...-profile (either existing directory or obtained from a 
guix copy) to the profile and root list ?

Cheers,

Emmanuel

Re: How to share profile among machines ?

[Tomas Volf]

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On 2024-04-24 16:54:19 +0200, Emmanuel Medernach wrote:
> Hello Guix !
>
> How do you share profiles among machines ? For instance 2 users wants to
> have the same profile, user A shares the directory /gnu/store/...-profile to
> user B, user B either get access to it directly or from a remote machine
> with a  "guix copy <profile>", user B could now use this profile like this:
>
>  export GUIX_PROFILE="/gnu/store/...-profile"
>  source "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"
>
> But there is a problem: this profile is not listed with
>
>  guix package --list-profiles
>  guix gc --list-roots
>
> The problem is that if user A deletes this profile it gets garbage collected
> even if user B still needs to use it.
>
> So the question is: How user B could add an existing /gnu/store/...-profile
> (either existing directory or obtained from a guix copy) to the profile and
> root list ?

I think you can just create a symlinks in the /var/guix/profiles/per-user/B for
the profile and in the /var/guix/gcroots/profiles/per-user/B for the gc roots.

I *think* this should work?

Tomas

--
There are only two hard things in Computer Science:
cache invalidation, naming things and off-by-one errors.

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Re: How to share profile among machines ?

[Emmanuel Medernach]

Le 24/04/2024 à 19:37, Tomas Volf a écrit :
> On 2024-04-24 16:54:19 +0200, Emmanuel Medernach wrote:
>> Hello Guix !
>>
>> How do you share profiles among machines ? For instance 2 users wants to
>> have the same profile, user A shares the directory /gnu/store/...-profile to
>> user B, user B either get access to it directly or from a remote machine
>> with a  "guix copy <profile>", user B could now use this profile like this:
>>
>>   export GUIX_PROFILE="/gnu/store/...-profile"
>>   source "$GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile"
>>
>> But there is a problem: this profile is not listed with
>>
>>   guix package --list-profiles
>>   guix gc --list-roots
>>
>> The problem is that if user A deletes this profile it gets garbage collected
>> even if user B still needs to use it.
>>
>> So the question is: How user B could add an existing /gnu/store/...-profile
>> (either existing directory or obtained from a guix copy) to the profile and
>> root list ?
> I think you can just create a symlinks in the /var/guix/profiles/per-user/B for
> the profile and in the /var/guix/gcroots/profiles/per-user/B for the gc roots.
>
> I *think* this should work?

Awesome ! This works.

Would it be a good idea to add a guix subcommand to do that ?

Cheers,

Emmanuel


> Tomas
>
> --
> There are only two hard things in Computer Science:
> cache invalidation, naming things and off-by-one errors.

Re: How to share profile among machines ?

[Felix Lechner via]

Hi Emmanuel,

On Wed, Apr 24 2024, Emmanuel Medernach wrote:

> How do you share profiles among machines ?

Do you mean users?

> For instance 2 users wants to have the same profile, user A shares the
> directory /gnu/store/...-profile to user B, user B either get access
> to it directly or from a remote machine

My users manage their profiles via Guix Home.  Those configuration files
can be exchanged.  All my equipment also publishes the local store, so
built files are never far away.

Kind regards
Felix

Re: How to share profile among machines ?

[Emmanuel Medernach]

Le 25/04/2024 à 21:35, Felix Lechner a écrit :
> Hi Emmanuel,
>
> On Wed, Apr 24 2024, Emmanuel Medernach wrote:
>
>> How do you share profiles among machines ?
> Do you mean users?

The original problem was to copy a profile from another machine and use 
it, guix copy <profile> does not add the profile to the list of 
profiles. But it is the same problem when sharing profile with another 
user on the same machine.


>
>> For instance 2 users wants to have the same profile, user A shares the
>> directory /gnu/store/...-profile to user B, user B either get access
>> to it directly or from a remote machine
> My users manage their profiles via Guix Home.  Those configuration files
> can be exchanged.  All my equipment also publishes the local store, so
> built files are never far away.

Good to know, I would prefer guix copy <profile> to handle adding the 
symlinks. Or to have a subcommand for that to avoid fiddling with 
"internal Guix scheming".

Thanks to both of you for your help !

Cheers,

Emmanuel


> Kind regards
> Felix