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Diffstat (limited to 'doc/guix.texi')
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/guix.texi | 46 |
1 files changed, 40 insertions, 6 deletions
diff --git a/doc/guix.texi b/doc/guix.texi index 4fb14063d0..81f85d1b2f 100644 --- a/doc/guix.texi +++ b/doc/guix.texi @@ -95,7 +95,7 @@ always produces the same result when passed a given set of inputs. It cannot alter the system's environment in any way; for instance, it cannot create, modify, or delete files outside of its build and installation directories. This is achieved by running -build processes in isolated environments (or @dfn{chroots}), where only their +build processes in isolated environments (or @dfn{containers}), where only their explicit inputs are visible. @cindex store @@ -224,6 +224,7 @@ The @code{guix-daemon} program may then be run as @code{root} with: # guix-daemon --build-users-group=guix-builder @end example +@cindex chroot @noindent This way, the daemon starts build processes in a chroot, under one of the @code{guix-builder} users. On GNU/Linux, by default, the chroot @@ -271,6 +272,10 @@ is normally run as @code{root} like this: @noindent For details on how to set it up, @ref{Setting Up the Daemon}. +@cindex chroot +@cindex container, build environment +@cindex build environment +@cindex reproducible builds By default, @command{guix-daemon} launches build processes under different UIDs, taken from the build group specified with @code{--build-users-group}. In addition, each build process is run in a @@ -278,7 +283,10 @@ chroot environment that only contains the subset of the store that the build process depends on, as specified by its derivation (@pxref{Programming Interface, derivation}), plus a set of specific system directories. By default, the latter contains @file{/dev} and -@file{/dev/pts}. +@file{/dev/pts}. Furthermore, on GNU/Linux, the build environment is a +@dfn{container}: in addition to having its own file system tree, it has +a separate mount name space, its own PID name space, network name space, +etc. This helps achieve reproducible builds (@pxref{Features}). The following command-line options are supported: @@ -447,13 +455,18 @@ profiles, and remove those that are provably no longer referenced generations of their profile so that the packages they refer to can be collected. +@cindex reproducibility +@cindex reproducible builds Finally, Guix takes a @dfn{purely functional} approach to package management, as described in the introduction (@pxref{Introduction}). Each @file{/nix/store} package directory name contains a hash of all the inputs that were used to build that package---compiler, libraries, build scripts, etc. This direct correspondence allows users to make sure a given package installation matches the current state of their -distribution, and helps maximize @dfn{reproducibility}. +distribution. It also helps maximize @dfn{build reproducibility}: +thanks to the isolated build environments that are used, a given build +is likely to yield bit-identical files when performed on different +machines (@pxref{Invoking guix-daemon, container}). @cindex substitute This foundation allows Guix to support @dfn{transparent binary/source @@ -1470,12 +1483,16 @@ The @var{options} may be zero or more of the following: @item --expression=@var{expr} @itemx -e @var{expr} -Build the package @var{expr} evaluates to. +Build the package or derivation @var{expr} evaluates to. For example, @var{expr} may be @code{(@@ (gnu packages guile) guile-1.8)}, which unambiguously designates this specific variant of version 1.8 of Guile. +Alternately, @var{expr} may refer to a zero-argument monadic procedure +(@pxref{The Store Monad}). The procedure must return a derivation as a +monadic value, which is then passed through @code{run-with-store}. + @item --source @itemx -S Build the packages' source derivations, rather than the packages @@ -1546,6 +1563,22 @@ Use the given verbosity level. @var{level} must be an integer between 0 and 5; higher means more verbose output. Setting a level of 4 or more may be helpful when debugging setup issues with the build daemon. +@item --log-file +Return the build log file names for the given +@var{package-or-derivation}s, or raise an error if build logs are +missing. + +This works regardless of how packages or derivations are specified. For +instance, the following invocations are equivalent: + +@example +guix build --log-file `guix build -d guile` +guix build --log-file `guix build guile` +guix build --log-file guile +guix build --log-file -e '(@@ (gnu packages guile) guile-2.0)' +@end example + + @end table Behind the scenes, @command{guix build} is essentially an interface to @@ -1708,8 +1741,9 @@ Guix comes with a distribution of free software@footnote{The term users of that software}.} that form the basis of the GNU system. This includes core GNU packages such as GNU libc, GCC, and Binutils, as well as many GNU and non-GNU applications. The complete list of available -packages can be seen by running @command{guix package} (@pxref{Invoking -guix package}): +packages can be browsed +@url{http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/package-list.html,on-line} or by +running @command{guix package} (@pxref{Invoking guix package}): @example guix package --list-available |