Re: installing a mirror for offline installation

[Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net>]

(+ help-guix)

Quiliro <quiliro@riseup.net> writes:

> Yes. I will want all packages. I will work with all packages for an
> extended period. When I am desperate for an update, I would take the
> _server_ for update.

Okay.  Maybe it would be better then to set up an instance of cuirass on
your portable server and specifically enable the use of substitutes.  It
would build / download all packages according to its configuration.  You
can limit the configuration such that it only provides binaries for your
desired architecture.

I must admit, though, that I’ve been trying to do something just like
that, but I haven’t fully succeeded yet, because Cuirass doesn’t handle
errors well.  But it wouldn’t hurt to have more users and contributors
to Cuirass.

>> Not all packages can actually be built.  There’s a small percentage of
>> packages that fails to build from source and you would probably waste a
>> lot of time trying to build them locally.  I don’t know if there’s an
>> easy way to exclude those packages and refuse to build anything locally
>> (maybe with a smart offloading setup).
>
> How is this?

Not all software builds at all time.  That’s pretty normal.  All
software has bugs and some software requires patching before it can be
built with particular versions of other pieces of software.  That’s what
we’re working on collectively as package maintainers.

>> I don’t think it’s a good idea to repeatedly build and
>> copy store items over.
>
> It could be done every 2 months.

If the machines are not connected to the internet this is okay.  If they
are used to connect to the internet, however, it would be a bad idea to
let them use outdated software.  Patches come in at irregular intervals
that are shorter than a 2 month period.

Hardly a week goes by without some new vulnerability.

--
Ricardo

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