Subject: Re: bug#52051: [core-updates-frozen] cannot login ('org.freedesktop.login1' service times out)

From: Leo Famulari <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2021 12:32:21 -0500

On Tue, Dec 21, 2021 at 04:52:19PM +0000, Maxime Devos wrote:
> Are there any good reasons for having a timeout at all?
> (Except for the local-user denial of service, but local users can do
> "guix build -f something-that-allocates-almost-all-memory-and-melts-
> the-cpu.scm" anyway ...)
> 
> If not, can the timeout be disabled/set to infinity?

Could be. But I think that, based on a several years of reports, the
X200 with an HDD is the slowest machine used with Guix System. On my
X200 with HDD, I have personally experienced similar race-y bugs that
seem to crop up after major upgrades --- I assume that it's a case of
bad luck, where important programs for booting move to distant parts of
the disk and seeking is too slow.

> A comment like 
> 
> > ;; Set timeout to a huge number (16.6 hours), because
> > ;; upstream often sets timeouts low for spinning disks,
> > ;; slow CPUs, etc.
> > (limit [...] "60000")
> 
> could be useful (I'm assuming the timeout is in seconds here).

I suggest we wait until such drastic action is necessary. Otherwise we
might be banging our heads against the wall in a few years, trying to
debug something. Let's not rush to extremes :)