syslogd can't be started when running Guix in Docker

[Konrad Hinsen]

Hi everyone,

I am exploring the possibility of running Guix under macOS via Docker.
First I ran 'guix system docker-image` on a minimal system
configuration, which I then transferred to the Mac and started.
Overall it works admirably well. There are however a few services
that don't work, in particulary syslogd:

   root@guix /# herd status
   Started:
    + file-systems
    + guix-daemon
    + host-name
    + loopback
    + root
    + root-file-system
    + udev
    + urandom-seed
    + user-file-systems
    + user-processes
    + virtual-terminal
   Stopped:
    - nscd
    - ssh-daemon
    - syslogd
   One-shot:
    * user-homes

   root@guix /# herd start syslogd
   Service syslogd could not be started.
   herd: failed to start service syslogd

I have no idea why this should fail, and worse, I have no idea how to
debug this. I checked /var/log/messages and /var/log/debug, but I can't
see anything looking like an error message except for shepherd reporting
that syslogs and ssh-daemon could not be started.

I'd be grateful for ideas and suggestions on how to figure out what is
going wrong. I'd also be interested in working dockerized versions
of Guix for comparison.

Thanks in advance,
  Konrad