Re: Better support remote deployment

[Maxim Cournoyer]

Hi Ricardo,

Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> writes:

> Hi Guix,
>
> I build software locally and deploy the result to a remote system with
> “guix copy”.  This works pretty well but has a few rough edges:
>
> 1. “guix build -m manifest.scm” does not generate a profile.  It only
> builds the list of packages.  To build a profile from a manifest file we
> need to resort to something like this:
>
>     guix shell -m $(PWD)/etc/container-server-manifest.scm -- sh -c 'echo 
> $GUIX_ENVIRONMENT'
>
> 2. “guix package” cannot install an existing profile store item as the
> current generation of the profile.  It can, however, install individual
> package items into a profile.
>
> 3. “guix package --remove” does not support regular expressions, so
> removing packages that were installed with “guix install /gnu/store/…”
> cannot easily be removed.
>
> Because of these limitations I cannot make use of a Guix profile symlink
> forest on the target system.  Instead I build a profile locally (with
> the “guix shell” trick above), copy it to the remote with “guix copy
> --to=remote /gnu/store/…-profile”, and then link that profile to a fixed
> location on the remote system.
>
> I would like to change this workflow so that I can benefit from roll
> backs without having to manually mess with symlinks.
>
> What do you think about changing “guix package” and/or “guix copy” to
> better support deployment of remote profiles?

I like the use case, but perhaps it'd be best implemented via hooking
'guix home' configs with 'operating-system' ?  So you could say, for
this user, I want the following packages and services installed?

Would that work for your use case?

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim