Re: System configuration on non-GuixSD systems (Debian)

[Christopher Baines]

On Tue, 22 Aug 2017 11:23:25 +0200
Pjotr Prins <address@hidden> wrote:

> I need to reinstall a Debian server (again) and I am looking at how I
> can use 'guix system' to configure stuff. I remember there was someone
> who wrote a about configuring on non-GuixSD, but can't find the
> material (I need Debian because it has CUDA).
> 
> Let's say I want sshd. It would make sense to me to create a package
> for openssh-with-config-for-machine, i.e., a modified sshd_config. The
> config file can sit in the store somewhere and I can symlink to a
> profile from /etc/sshd on this box so it gets picked up.
> 
> I have two questions:
> 
> 1. Is there a smarter way to go about this? I can see for GuixSD is
>    handled differently
> 2. How do I best parametrize the configuration file - for different
>    machines? I suppose the package could write the config file.
> 
> systemd I'll do separately - though I suppose you could mix systemd
> and shepherd?
> 
> Doing it in a Guixy way would help me migrate to GuixSD later. Any
> ideas?

One maybe bizare suggestion that comes to mind is to use a container
created through the `guix system container` command.

This would allow you to create a set of processes, that you could give
access to specific parts of the host filesystem (using the --share and
--expose options), and expose the host network to if you want to
use services which access the network (only with this patch [1]).

The more things you do through the container, the closer you are to
having something work just on GuixSD. You might get to the point where
you can even replace what you are using from Debian with Guix packages
that just unpack some Debian packages to the store.

Where this approach might fall down is usability, e.g. reconfiguring a
container isn't possible yet, so you might have to restart it when you
want to make changes, which might be problomatic if you are doing this
through the ssh service in the container...

1: https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=28128

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