Subject: bug#33151: 'guix substitute' returns a 504 error without trying to use other servers

From: [email-masked] (Ludovic Courtès)
Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2018 22:33:16 +0100

Hello Clément,

Clément Lassieur <[email-masked]> skribis:

> I don't understand why you closed the bug report.  Your explanation of
> the bug makes sense, but it doesn't mean that it's fixed.
>
> I expect that when a substitute server is down, for whatever reason,
> Guix should still work smoothly if there is another server set up.
>
> If you think there is no way to fix it, maybe the tag "wontfix" would be
> more appropriate?

No I think you’re right, I shouldn’t have closed it.

I think my first thought was that the problem (narinfo available but
corresponding nar missing) was mostly due to our peculiar nginx setup on
mirror.hydra.gnu.org: this cannot happen under normal circumstances
because ‘guix publish’ really honors the expiry it sets on narinfos.

That said, we could fix ‘process-substitution’ in (guix scripts
substitute) to try other nar URLs (if any) upon failure.

IMO such a fix is not “high-priority” for the reason I gave above, but
OTOH it can be helpful to better cope with the sad reality of situations
like the one we’re in.

Thoughts?

Thanks for the heads-up, and sorry for hitting the “close” button too
quickly!

Ludo’.