bug#30728: guix-install.sh doesn't work if run with "sudo"

[Chris Marusich]

Clément Lassieur <address@hidden> writes:

> Clément Lassieur <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> My system is Ubuntu 16.04.
>>
>> I ran './guix-install.sh' and got the message: "This script must be run
>> as root.".  So I ran 'sudo ./guix-install.sh' and got an error message
>> saying that:
>>
>>     GUIX_PROFILE="${HOME}/.guix-profile"
>>     source "${GUIX_PROFILE}/etc/profile"
>>
>> the 'source' command doesn't work because ${GUIX_PROFILE} was never
>> created, ${HOME} being /home/clement, not /root.
>>
>> To recover from this I had to manually delete /var/guix and /gnu, log as
>> root with 'su', and start again.
>>
>> Clément
>
> I believe the script should install Guix in the user's home directory,
> not in ~root.

The manual says (see: (guix) Binary Installation):

  3. Make ‘root’’s profile available under ‘~/.guix-profile’:

          # ln -sf /var/guix/profiles/per-user/root/guix-profile \
                   ~root/.guix-profile

     Source ‘etc/profile’ to augment ‘PATH’ and other relevant
     environment variables:

          # GUIX_PROFILE=$HOME/.guix-profile ; \
            source $GUIX_PROFILE/etc/profile

I believe the expectation here is that $HOME will expand to root's home
directory.  Look at the previous ln invocation: we set up a symlink for
the .guix-profile in root's home directory, so it's pretty clear that
$HOME/.guix-profile is supposed to point to that profile.

I think there is a tacit assumption in the manual and the
guix-install.sh script that the HOME environment variable will refer to
root's home directory, which is not always true.  For example, on
current Ubuntu, if you run sudo with no arguments, you will find that
the HOME environment variable still points to your unprivileged user's
home directory, not to root's home directory.  This is because sudo can
be configured in many ways, and on Ubuntu, they have chosen to configure
it in that way.  On other systems, it might behave differently.

I've attached a patch which should fix this.  Can you confirm whether it
works?

-- 
Chris

0001-guix-install.sh-Explicitly-set-root-s-home-directory.patch
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