Re: Better support remote deployment

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Hi Maxim,

> 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?

No, because on the remote I don’t have Guix System.

It would still be useful, but not for this use case.

-- 
Ricardo