Re: March update on bordeaux.guix.gnu.org

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Chris,

Christopher Baines <mail@cbaines.net> skribis:

> ## Serving fixed output files by hash
>
> bordeaux.guix.gnu.org is now in the list of content addressed mirrors
> [2].

Yay!

> ## Referential integrity
>
> This is usually something I think about in the context of databases, but
> nars/narinfos have references, and I've been working to ensure that for
> any nar provided by bordeaux.guix.gnu.org, you're also able to fetch any
> nar it references.

Great that you looked into it.  That’s something we did not explicitly
address until now, on the grounds that ‘guix substitute’ would typically
look up both a store item and its dependencies, which in practice means
that the TTL of a store item and that of its dependencies would likely
be synchronized.  But clearly, it’s best to ensure that by construction.

> ## Offering zstd compressed nars

Yay!

> ## Next steps
>
> Last time I said that I thought the main blocking issue in making
> bordeaux.guix.gnu.org the default substitute server to try first was the
> lack of zstd nars. Some nars are now available with zstd compression, so
> there's progress been made on this at least. I think a good argument can
> be made for trying bordeaux.guix.gnu.org being better for users than
> trying ci.guix.gnu.org first, but it's not clear cut.

I think keeping both is ideal, notably from a fault-tolerance viewpoint.

> On the issue of expanding the storage for nars, I've submitted the
> request to purchase an additional hard drive for hatysa to expand the
> storage there. There is still a need to come up with a plan to replace
> bishan when it runs out of space (ideally before!).

Definitely; this should be high-priority for the project.

Thanks!

Ludo’.