Re: Guix Docker image inflation

[Stephen Scheck]

On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 7:55 PM zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> wrote:


> Thank you for the explanation.  The issue is these layers.  When I
> wrote [1], it was not clear for me because I am not enough familiar
> with Docker, but with your explanations, it is clear now. :-)
>
> [1] http://issues.guix.gnu.org/41607#1
>

No, it is not layers - they are a symptom, not the cause. See my reply to
Chris.
The problem is clearly that Guix isn't deleting garbage files ... which may
have something
to do with how Guix interacts with files in the file system and differences
in Docker
environments (no idea, I don't know how Guix works, but perhaps it needs
some special
privilege enabled when it runs inside Docker containers?), but layers
themselves do not
prevent file deletion inside a container.


> > FYI, Guix itself can build Docker images from scratch - no base image
> > required!  It can even build a Docker image of a full-blown Guix System
> > from scratch.  Sorry if you already knew that - I just wanted to point
> > it out in case you didn't!
>
> I think the idea is to use GitlabCI to build the Docker images
> containing Guix materials.  And AFAIK, GitlabCI does not provide Guix
> related tools, isn't it?  I mean there is no gitlab-runner able to run
> guix-daemon.  If I remember well, we discussed about this topic at
> FOSDEM, it should be awesome. :-)
>

It is possible to host your own external Runners, and have them utilized by
CI/CD jobs running inside the GitLab cloud service. You could install Guix
on them and configure your CI/CD pipeline to require execution of certain
jobs on these custom runners. But I'm not sure I see why that would help?