Subject: bug#67863: closed (Re: bug#76998: Guix Home leaves user shepherd on logout, starts new instance on login)

From: [email-masked] (GNU bug Tracking System)
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2025 13:37:07 +0000

Your bug report

#76998: Guix Home leaves user shepherd on logout, starts new instance on login

which was filed against the guix package, has been closed.

The explanation is attached below, along with your original report.
If you require more details, please reply to [email-masked].

-- 
76998: https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=76998
GNU Bug Tracking System
Contact [email-masked] with problems

Subject: Re: bug#76998: Guix Home leaves user shepherd on logout, starts new instance on login
From: Ludovic Courtès <[email-masked]>
To: Tomas Volf <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], Jake <[email-masked]>, Daniel Littlewood <[email-masked]>, Danny Milosavljevic <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2025 15:28:54 +0200
List-Id: <debbugs-submit.debbugs.gnu.org>

Hi,

Tomas Volf <[email-masked]> writes:

> Well, since you have mentioned the GnuPG as an example, we could just
> mirror what it does, and what I have suggested before.
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> $ mkdir /tmp/xxx && cd /tmp/xxx
> $ guix shell -u test -C findutils gnupg coreutils bash procps -- env HOME=/tmp/xxx GNUPGHOME=/tmp/xxx bash
> test@xx ~ [env]$ gpg-agent --daemon
> gpg-agent[2]: directory '/tmp/xxx/private-keys-v1.d' created
> gpg-agent[3]: gpg-agent (GnuPG) 2.4.7 started
> test@xx ~ [env]$ find /run/user
> /run/user
> /run/user/1000
> /run/user/1000/gnupg
> /run/user/1000/gnupg/d.j1yiifhhjrep9xunazyff54c
> /run/user/1000/gnupg/d.j1yiifhhjrep9xunazyff54c/S.gpg-agent.ssh
> /run/user/1000/gnupg/d.j1yiifhhjrep9xunazyff54c/S.gpg-agent.browser
> /run/user/1000/gnupg/d.j1yiifhhjrep9xunazyff54c/S.gpg-agent.extra
> /run/user/1000/gnupg/d.j1yiifhhjrep9xunazyff54c/S.gpg-agent
> test@xx ~ [env]$ ps aux
> USER       PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
> test         1  0.0  0.0   5136  4068 ?        S    13:32   0:00 bash
> test         3  0.0  0.0   5516  2400 ?        Ss   13:32   0:00 gpg-agent --daemon
> test         5  0.0  0.0   5224  3852 ?        R+   13:32   0:00 ps aux
> test@xx ~ [env]$ rm -r /run/user/1000/gnupg
> gpg-agent[3]: socket file has been removed - shutting down
> gpg-agent[3]: gpg-agent (GnuPG) 2.4.7 stopped
> test@xx ~ [env]$ find /run/user
> /run/user
> /run/user/1000
> test@xx ~ [env]$ ps aux
> USER       PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
> test         1  0.0  0.0   5136  4068 ?        S    13:32   0:00 bash
> test         8  0.0  0.0   5224  3776 ?        R+   13:33   0:00 ps aux
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> So my suggestion is that when the socket is deleted, the shepherd
> process stops itself.

Brilliant!

The only downside is that it’ll be a bit of work (using inotify on Linux
and some other method elsewhere, presumably polling) but it definitely
sounds like a good plan.

I can look into it later it nobody beats me at it.

Ludo’.

Subject: Guix Home: Multiple instances of user Shepherd created
From: [email-masked]
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2023 23:42:04 +0100 (CET)
List-Id: <debbugs-submit.debbugs.gnu.org>

I am trying to use the awesome Guix Home Shepherd service for syncthing (home-syncthing-service-type).
 
Syncthing works fine but every time I log out of my last user session and log back in again, a new instance of the user shepherd is started (and tries to start syncthing again).
After logging out and in a few times, there are multiple user shepherd processes.
 
Suspected cause:  Apparently the user shepherd process is not killed on last logout before elogind (correctly) removes XDG_RUNTIME_DIR.
So on next login, a new empty XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is created, causing a new user shepherd to be started while the old one is still running happily.
This seems to be a general issue and not particular to the syncthing home service.
 
System: Guix System on x86_64
Guix commit: ac61e9705fb8c450c6cd0c1731fbb1b909c1f944
 
--
Uli