Very slow download speed of substitutes

Very slow download speed of substitutes

[Lo Peter]

Dear all,

I am trying guix import from cran, and building some R packages, which
sometimes needs to download substitutes. i noticed that the download
speed can be ridiculously slow and seems especially during night in
HKT.

Here is a snippet of the downloading:

substituting /gnu/store/njhd9w4pvp2c6mbdngg1xvvld82a2c1l-ghc-ansi-wl-pprint-0.6.9...
downloading from
https://ci.guix.gnu.org/nar/lzip/njhd9w4pvp2c6mbdngg1xvvld82a2c1l-ghc-ansi-wl-pprint-0.6.9
...
 ghc-ansi-wl-pprint-0.6.9  123KiB            25KiB/s 00:05
[##################] 100.0%

substituting /gnu/store/p035ilg1b6ywpxxj8df494x8zxnnwg12-ghc-data-default-instances-containers-0.0.1...
downloading from
https://ci.guix.gnu.org/nar/lzip/p035ilg1b6ywpxxj8df494x8zxnnwg12-ghc-data-default-instances-containers-0.0.1
...
 ghc-data-default-instances-containers-0.0.1  42KiB 37KiB/s 00:01
[##################] ghc-data-default-instances-containers-0.0.1
42KiB 37KiB/s 00:01 [##################] 100.0%

substituting /gnu/store/fzvfc1zzqqg2y2f2j7a3p7268gbj8x18-ghc-digest-0.0.1.2...
downloading from
https://ci.guix.gnu.org/nar/lzip/fzvfc1zzqqg2y2f2j7a3p7268gbj8x18-ghc-digest-0.0.1.2
...
 ghc-digest-0.0.1.2  50KiB                   26KiB/s 00:02
[##################] 100.0%

substituting /gnu/store/5vkirs3zzwg7n099f5pwcf3kbf1mjxrg-ghc-entropy-0.4.1.5...
downloading from
https://ci.guix.gnu.org/nar/lzip/5vkirs3zzwg7n099f5pwcf3kbf1mjxrg-ghc-entropy-0.4.1.5
...
 ghc-entropy-0.4.1.5  57KiB                  21KiB/s 00:03
[##################] 100.0%

substituting /gnu/store/vv9mvx9fk8yk49fn0czmszss1s72za8c-ghc-erf-2.0.0.0...
downloading from
https://ci.guix.gnu.org/nar/lzip/vv9mvx9fk8yk49fn0czmszss1s72za8c-ghc-erf-2.0.0.0
...
 ghc-erf-2.0.0.0  51KiB                      32KiB/s 00:02
[##################] 100.0%

substituting /gnu/store/289w11bnbb8v5hav1463my181jchi1ck-ghc-executable-path-0.0.3.1...
downloading from
https://ci.guix.gnu.org/nar/lzip/289w11bnbb8v5hav1463my181jchi1ck-ghc-executable-path-0.0.3.1
...
 ghc-executable-path-0.0.3.1  58KiB          12KiB/s 00:05
[##################] 100.0%

substituting /gnu/store/8wjlzpx0mxmfmcfq83kqg949vkqy05dh-ghc-extensible-exceptions-0.1.1.4...
downloading from
https://ci.guix.gnu.org/nar/lzip/8wjlzpx0mxmfmcfq83kqg949vkqy05dh-ghc-extensible-exceptions-0.1.1.4
...
 ghc-extensible-exceptions-0.1.1.4  41KiB    20KiB/s 00:02
[##################] 100.0%


One of ghc-* (not shown above) which weights around 97MB took 2 hours
to download.
But when I use speedtest.net to test my internet speed
(https://www.speedtest.net/result/9675438421) I get about 80Mbps both
upload and download, while some substitutes are still download (and
they are still downloading when I am typing this).

So is this problem with my guix setting or is it known that
ci.guix.gnu.org is slow?
This guix is installed on Linux Mint 19.2, and I did "guix pull" yesterday.

Regards,
Peter

Re: Very slow download speed of substitutes

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Lo Peter <peterloleungyau@gmail.com> skribis:

> I am trying guix import from cran, and building some R packages, which
> sometimes needs to download substitutes. i noticed that the download
> speed can be ridiculously slow and seems especially during night in
> HKT.
>
> Here is a snippet of the downloading:
>
> substituting /gnu/store/njhd9w4pvp2c6mbdngg1xvvld82a2c1l-ghc-ansi-wl-pprint-0.6.9...
> downloading from
> https://ci.guix.gnu.org/nar/lzip/njhd9w4pvp2c6mbdngg1xvvld82a2c1l-ghc-ansi-wl-pprint-0.6.9
> ...
>  ghc-ansi-wl-pprint-0.6.9  123KiB            25KiB/s 00:05
> [##################] 100.0%
>
> substituting /gnu/store/p035ilg1b6ywpxxj8df494x8zxnnwg12-ghc-data-default-instances-containers-0.0.1...
> downloading from
> https://ci.guix.gnu.org/nar/lzip/p035ilg1b6ywpxxj8df494x8zxnnwg12-ghc-data-default-instances-containers-0.0.1
> ...
>  ghc-data-default-instances-containers-0.0.1  42KiB 37KiB/s 00:01
> [##################] ghc-data-default-instances-containers-0.0.1
> 42KiB 37KiB/s 00:01 [##################] 100.0%

These are all small files so the download speed that is displayed may be
inaccurate.  I’d encourage you to check and report the download speed
for large files, say LibreOffice.

That said, the code in Guix could be improved by arranging to keep the
HTTPS connection alive between downloads instead of reopening it every
time.  This is especially expensive when downloading lots of small files
as is the case above.

Thanks,
Ludo’.