guix package: error: build failed: unable to fork: Invalid argument

guix package: error: build failed: unable to fork: Invalid argument

[David Knight]

when I try:

  guix package -i hello

it downloads about 277M of files (up to guile-2.0.9.tar.xz) into
/nix/store then errors with "guix package: error: build failed: unable
to fork: Invalid argument".  Rerunning the command gives the same error
message.

The same error shows on two different distros (LFS and Gentoo on i686),
and with both Guix 0.5 and cloned from git.  Guix 0.5 'make check'
passes all tests, and the git version from today passes all tests except
'topologically-sorted, more difficult' in store.scm.  Other guix package
commands such a --search= and --list-available seem to work as expected.

A search for similar build errors came up with an 'unable to fork:
Operation not permitted' that was due to an old kernel; I'm running a
kernel 3.10.25, so I don't think it's that.

The dependencies required in the manual have the following versions:
guile (2.0.9), g++ (4.7.3), libcrypt (3.8.0), sqlite (3.8.2), libbz2
(1.0.6).

The only other error message I can see is a system log warning:

"guile: Libgcrypt warning: missing initialization - please fix the
application"

Re: guix package: error: build failed: unable to fork: Invalid argument

[Sree Harsha Totakura]

On 02/18/2014 05:29 PM, David Knight wrote:
> it downloads about 277M of files (up to guile-2.0.9.tar.xz) into
> /nix/store then errors with "guix package: error: build failed: unable
> to fork: Invalid argument".  Rerunning the command gives the same error
> message.

It is common to install those many files.  They come from bootstrap
packages and are required.

> 
> The same error shows on two different distros (LFS and Gentoo on i686),
> and with both Guix 0.5 and cloned from git.  Guix 0.5 'make check'
> passes all tests, and the git version from today passes all tests except
> 'topologically-sorted, more difficult' in store.scm.  Other guix package
> commands such a --search= and --list-available seem to work as expected.

I am suspecting that this is a problem with you kernel configuration.
Do you have the namespaces available (the following options) in your config?
CONFIG_NAMESPACES=y
CONFIG_UTS_NS=y
CONFIG_IPC_NS=y
CONFIG_USER_NS=y
CONFIG_PID_NS=y
CONFIG_NET_NS=y

--
Sree

Re: guix package: error: build failed: unable to fork: Invalid argument

[David Knight]

Sree Harsha Totakura wrote:
> I am suspecting that this is a problem with you kernel configuration.
> Do you have the namespaces available (the following options) in your
> config?
>
> CONFIG_NAMESPACES=y
> CONFIG_UTS_NS=y
> CONFIG_IPC_NS=y
> CONFIG_USER_NS=y
> CONFIG_PID_NS=y
> CONFIG_NET_NS=y

Wonderful, setting these solved the problem.  Now guix package -i hello
works for me!

Many thanks, David.

Re: guix package: error: build failed: unable to fork: Invalid argument

[Sree Harsha Totakura]

On 02/19/2014 12:53 AM, David Knight wrote:
> Wonderful, setting these solved the problem.  Now guix package -i hello
> works for me!

Good.  The namespaces are required for Guix to build new packages in a
chroot environment which should be independent of the host system and
consistent on all hosts for a given package.

Sree