Re: Extra files in build container

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi Gregor,

Gregor Giesen <address@hidden> skribis:

> I'm trying to pack unbound, however its unittests require /etc/protocols
> and /etc/services. Now, I have found them in the net-base package 
> which I included in native-inputs, but that is not sufficient for
> glibc's getprotoent and getservent to find them. Can I symlink the
> net-base ones to the build container's /etc? Adding an extra phase 
> before 'check does not allow me to write /etc in the container.

Indeed, /etc is read-only in the build container, and it contains only
the bare minimum:

  
https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/html_node/Build-Environment-Setup.html

The code that populates it can be found at:

  https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/nix/libstore/build.cc#n1852

In cases like the one you describe, we usually end up modifying tests to
use the numerical values for services and protocols rather than their
names.

It would probably make sense to allow derivations to populate /etc
though.

HTH,
Ludo’.