Ok, I have just tried to build the binary tarball on a VM where I
reproduced all the paths I want (basically, instead of /gnu I want
/shared/shape_tier3/common/local/guix) and which has c++11 compliant gcc --
that also failed. I pulled today's git and ran guix-daemon
--no-substitutes. The error seems to be "unable to fork: Operation not
permitted". I am running guix-daemon as myself and I have all permissions
to the /.../local/guix):

GUIX_PACKAGE_PATH= \
./pre-inst-env "/usr/bin/guile"                 \
  "./build-aux/make-binary-tarball.scm" "x86_64-linux"
"guix-binary.x86_64-linux.tar.xz"

.........


|   recursively deleting path
`/shared/shape_tier3/common/local/guix/store/m38laca1idmvx8m03dl6b5qmn8xhv9c3-guile-bootstrap-2.0.drv.chroot'
|   lock released on
`/shared/shape_tier3/common/local/guix/store/pgs6vqy03wg2m5mn2ahvi4sarx89vnls-guile-bootstrap-2.0.lock'
|   building of
`/shared/shape_tier3/common/local/guix/store/m38laca1idmvx8m03dl6b5qmn8xhv9c3-guile-bootstrap-2.0.drv':
goal destroyed
Backtrace:
In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
 157: 11 [catch #t #<catch-closure 198d7e0> ...]
In unknown file:
   ?: 10 [apply-smob/1 #<catch-closure 198d7e0>]
In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
  63: 9 [call-with-prompt prompt0 ...]
In ice-9/eval.scm:
 432: 8 [eval # #]
In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
2401: 7 [save-module-excursion #<procedure 19aa9c0 at
ice-9/boot-9.scm:4045:3 ()>]
4052: 6 [#<procedure 19aa9c0 at ice-9/boot-9.scm:4045:3 ()>]
In unknown file:
   ?: 5 [load-compiled/vm
"/home/alex/.cache/guile/ccache/2.0-LE-8-2.0/home/alex/src/guix/build-aux/make-binary-tarball.scm.go"]
In build-aux/make-binary-tarball.scm:
  38: 4 [#<procedure 19bd840 ()>]
In guix/store.scm:
 986: 3 [run-with-store # ...]
In build-aux/make-binary-tarball.scm:
  41: 2 [#<procedure 315e840 at build-aux/make-binary-tarball.scm:40:7
(state)> #]
In guix/store.scm:
 933: 1 [#<procedure 3aac870 at guix/store.scm:932:28 (store)> #]
 624: 0 [build-things # #]

guix/store.scm:624:0: In procedure build-things:
guix/store.scm:624:0: Throw to key `srfi-34' with args `(#<condition
&nix-protocol-error [message: "unable to fork: Operation not permitted"
status: 1] 3d65f60>)'.
Makefile:4331: recipe for target 'guix-binary.x86_64-linux.tar.xz' failed
make: [guix-binary.x86_64-linux.tar.xz] Error 1 (ignored)

Thanks,
Alex

On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 8:45 AM, Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org> wrote:

> Alexander Vorobiev <alexander.vorobiev@gmail.com> skribis:
>
> > Doesn't binary distribution have hardcoded /gnu/* paths?
>
> Yes it does.
>
> > I can't use those unfortunately. We have a standard configuration of
> > RHEL 6.5 installed on hundreds of servers and any modifications of the
> > root directory (and all other "standard" directories) layout are out
> > of question.
>
> OK.  Note that using a store other than /gnu/store prevents you from
> using substitutes from hydra.gnu.org (just mentioning it if that is of
> interest to you.)
>
> > Would it be too hard to add an environment variable(s) pointing to a
> > Guix's store and cache directories so that the binary build of the
> > daemon doesn't depend on the hardcoded values?  Thanks, Alex
>
> There are two issues here:
>
>   1. File names hard-coded in the RUNPATH and other places of the
>      ‘guix-daemon’ binary of the tarball.
>
>   2. The store directory that ‘guix-daemon’ targets.
>
> #2 can actually be changed at run-time via the (purposefully
> undocumented) ‘NIX_STORE_DIR’ environment variable (see ‘test-env.in’ in
> the source tree.)
>
> #1 means that if you want to run the ‘guix-daemon’ binary from the
> binary tarball, you’ll have to somehow satisfy its requirements.  You
> might be able to unpack the tarball in an arbitrary directory, and then
> define ‘LD_LIBRARY_PATH’ so that ‘guix-daemon’ finds all the .so files
> that it needs and are provided by the binary tarball (libstdc++.so,
> libgcrypt.so, libsqlite3.so, libc.so, etc.)
>
> Once ‘guix-daemon’ is running, you could run ‘guix environment guix’,
> and from there you could build Guix from source.
>
> But that is really hacky, and perhaps not particularly easier than
> building a newer GCC on your machine.
>
> Alternately, you could build a suitable binary tarball on another
> machine: just install and configure Guix with the options that you need,
> and run ‘make guix-binary.x86_64-linux.tar.xz’.
>
> WDYT?
>
> Ludo’.
>