Re: Guix binary tarball

[Ludovic Courtès]

Mark H Weaver <address@hidden> skribis:

> Andreas Enge <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> - The tarball also contains /, /root and /var. When unpacking it, the owner
>>   and permissions are changed on the system. As a consequence, we could not
>>   ssh into the machine any more (!). Could these directories be left out of
>>   the tarball and only their contents be kept in?
>
> The directories could indeed be left out.

Oh you mean the *parent* directories, right?  Sorry I hadn’t understood
that.

> I experimentally verified that GNU tar will still create those
> directories if they don't already exist, but will leave their
> ownership and permissions unmodified if they do exist.
>
> Here's a suggested patch:
>
> diff --git a/gnu/system/install.scm b/gnu/system/install.scm
> index 799851c..10fbfdd 100644
> --- a/gnu/system/install.scm
> +++ b/gnu/system/install.scm
> @@ -71,7 +71,14 @@ under /root/.guix-profile where GUIX is installed."
>            (with-directory-excursion %root
>              (zero? (system* "tar" "--xz" "--format=gnu"
>                              "--owner=root:0" "--group=root:0"
> -                            "-cvf" #$output ".")))))
> +                            "-cvf" #$output
> +                            ;; Avoid adding /, /var, or /root to the tarball,
> +                            ;; so that the ownership and permissions of those
> +                            ;; directories will not be overwritten when
> +                            ;; extracting the archive.
> +                            "./root/.guix-profile"
> +                            "./var/guix"
> +                            "./gnu")))))
>  
>      (gexp->derivation "guix-tarball.tar.xz" build
>                        #:references-graphs `(("profile" ,profile))
>
> If we did this, then we could revert 8c3a5d7059 and avoid any use of
> --skip-old-files.  I would be in favor of this.
>
> What do you think?

Yes, that’s even better, please commit and revert 8c3a5d7059.

Thanks!

Ludo’.