Re: ‘guix archive’ doesn’t work over ‘./pre-inst-env’

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

Nikita Karetnikov <nikita@karetnikov.org> skribis:

> $ sudo ./pre-inst-env guix archive --generate-key
> $ ./pre-inst-env guix archive --export hello > hello.nar
> error: executing `guix-authenticate': No such file or directory
> guix archive: error: build failed: program `guix-authenticate' failed with exit code 1
>
> The command succeeded when I installed Guix and re-ran it without
> ‘./pre-inst-env’.

Indeed.  I just fixed that.

> Slightly off-topic: is Hydra supposed to do the same when someone
> requests a substitute?

It’s supposed to do something equivalent, yes (specifically, it uses a
Nix command-line client tool which calls the ‘export-paths’ RPC, which
then calls ‘guix authenticate’ to create the signature.)

However, note that hydra.gnu.org runs an older version of Hydra that
lacks support for that.  We can upgrade it when needed.

> Also, where can I find the corresponding NAR info file?  According to
> this commit [1], the signature should be there.

The .narinfo files are created on the fly.  When looking for a binary
for /nix/store/x4mnd9747fgwacjrvl1rynh59qlgz8gh-coreutils-8.21, the
substituter attempts to fetch:

  http://hydra.gnu.org/x4mnd9747fgwacjrvl1rynh59qlgz8gh.narinfo

It caches the answer (positive or negative) under
/nix/var/nix/substitute-binary/cache/x4mnd9747fgwacjrvl1rynh59qlgz8gh
(or similar.)

HTH,
Ludo’.