Questions regarding offloading ( unprivileged setup , parallel builds )

[YOANN P]

Hi Guix team,

I didn't find any documentation describing a way to use an alternative file for the offload settings instead of the default /etc/guix/machines.scm.

Did i missed something ? Is there other files that are put under /etc ?

It could be problematic for users who use custom store/state path in unprivileged environnements but want to use the offload isn't it ?

Another question regarding the offload, how are used the machines describe inside  /etc/guix/machines.scm ?

If the installation of a package require to build multiple packages, does the builds are all done on the first machine choose for the build or distribute over all machines describe on /etc/guix/machines.scm ?

The description of "parallel-builds" parameter and the fact than missing dependencies already present on the host who request the offload seem to be transferred through ssh let me think that only one machine at time is used for the offload even if all the machines present inside machines.scm share the same store.

Not sure about this too, there is no ssh transfert if the dependencies (same packages / store path ) are already on the offload store isn't it ?

Implementing something similar to the project "guix-relocate" from Pjotr inside the core project to be able to use native Guix packages with custom path when we install them would be a real huge improvement to prevent the use of proot/namespace/offloading :)

Thanks,

Best regards