Subject: Guix deploy does not properly error report

From: wolf <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2023 20:31:11 +0200

Hi,

when I run `guix deploy' that ends in an error, the report does not include all
information required to debug the issue.

    guix deploy: error: failed to deploy test: failed to switch systems while deploying '192.168.0.130':
    system-error "symlink" "~A" ("File exists") (17)

Would be somewhat useful to have the details about what file already exists.  If
I run `guix system switch-generation' directly on the target system, the output
is better:

    building /gnu/store/jqnxwfq6f5gvyjz0avqaakkd0ljbzglj-grub.cfg.drv...
    building /gnu/store/vjgyb6j36idxzdm8g6hgjsa75wmdbr7f-install-bootloader.scm.drv...
    switched from generation 83 to 83
    WARNING: (guile-user): imported module (guix build utils) overrides core binding `delete'
    making '/gnu/store/m71zy9yd38pm4mlwk7a7wp79053iiy5s-system' the current system...
    WARNING: (guile-user): imported module (guix build utils) overrides core binding `delete'
    setting up setuid programs in '/run/setuid-programs'...
    populating /etc from /gnu/store/inl5dmrhrdxxkch06mp1hvpv45abgkic-etc...
    guix system: error: symlink: File exists: "/etc/guix"

The information seems to be available, just not propagated via the `guix
deploy'.

Have a nice day,
W.

-- 
There are only two hard things in Computer Science:
cache invalidation, naming things and off-by-one errors.