Knowing which services to restart

Knowing which services to restart

[Matthew Kraai]

Hi,

When I ran `sudo guix system reconfigure /etc/config.scm`, it printed

> To complete the upgrade, run 'herd restart SERVICE' to stop,
> upgrade, and restart each service that was not automatically restarted.

How do I know which services need to be restarted?

-- 
Matthew Kraai

Re: Knowing which services to restart

[Pierre Neidhardt]

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I too have been wondering about this since ever :)

Couldn't Guix be smarter about this?  Or at least provide a less
puzzling message.

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/

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Re: Knowing which services to restart

[Carlo Zancanaro]

On Wed, Jul 08 2020, Pierre Neidhardt wrote:
> Couldn't Guix be smarter about this?  Or at least provide a less puzzling message.

This was brought up when we originally implemented upgrading of services on a live system. The discussion about this starts in an email from Ludovic[1], and proceeds from there (although you'll have to skip over some other unrelated conversations).

There are definitely ways that things can be improved. I made an attempt at doing this at the end of 2018[2], but that didn't result in anything being merged into Guix. I don't think we've yet settled on an approach for how to resolve this (and the related issue of automatically upgrading services).

Carlo

[1]: https://issues.guix.info/22039#11
[2]: https://issues.guix.info/33508

Re: Knowing which services to restart

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Carlo Zancanaro <carlo@zancanaro.id.au> skribis:

> On Wed, Jul 08 2020, Pierre Neidhardt wrote:
>> Couldn't Guix be smarter about this?  Or at least provide a less puzzling message.
>
> This was brought up when we originally implemented upgrading of services on a live system. The discussion about this starts in an email from Ludovic[1], and proceeds from there (although you'll have to skip over some other unrelated conversations).
>
> There are definitely ways that things can be improved. I made an attempt at doing this at the end of 2018[2], but that didn't result in anything being merged into Guix. I don't think we've yet settled on an approach for how to resolve this (and the related issue of automatically upgrading services).
>
> Carlo
>
> [1]: https://issues.guix.info/22039#11
> [2]: https://issues.guix.info/33508

The general issue here is that we cannot safely stop+start a service
without notice, unless the user explicitly said this is OK.
Consequently, in practice, only services that the user explicitly ‘herd
restart’s are up-to-date.  It’s OK when you know you what service you
want to update here and now, but it’s suboptimal otherwise.

I figured there’s one way to mostly sidestep the issue: when we have
“socket activation” in the Shepherd, then unused services will be
“stopped” at reconfigure time and thus safe to upgrade.  Thus, in
practice, more services will be upgraded by default.

It’d still be up to the user to restart currently running services when
they deem appropriate.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

Re: Knowing which services to restart

[Joshua Branson]

The real simple answer is to reboot your computer.  :)

But for the most part, it'll restart the necessary services.  Most
things that are essential won't get restarted.  For instance your X
server or your gnome session.  Because if it tried to restart those,
then you'd have to log in again.  :)

--
Joshua Branson
Sent from Emacs and Gnus
https://gnucode.me
https://video.hardlimit.com/accounts/joshua_branson/video-channels
"You can have whatever you want, as long as you help enough other people
get what they want." - Zig Ziglar