Nixpkgs: NixOps libvirtd fails since username can't be detected

[eadwu]

Describe the bug
Specifically through nixops creating libvirtd-image, it fails with error: cannot figure out user name around chroot /mnt ${config.nix.package.out}/bin/nix-store --load-db [2]. whoami outputs whoami: cannot find name for user ID 0: No such file or directory.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:
Any nixops machine deployed through libvirtd.

1. nixops create -d a ./.
2. nixops deploy -d a

Expected behavior
Create a QEMU image successfully.

Screenshots
If applicable, add screenshots to help explain your problem.

Additional context
Add any other context about the problem here.

Metadata
Please run nix run nixpkgs.nix-info -c nix-info -m and paste the result.

 - system: `"x86_64-linux"`
 - host os: `Linux 5.3.6-hardened, NixOS, 20.03.git.c6d74dc (Markhor)`
 - multi-user?: `yes`
 - sandbox: `yes`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.3pre6895_84de821`
 - channels(root): `"nixos-20.03pre194293.2436c27541b"`
 - nixpkgs: `$HOME/Projects/nixpkgs`

Maintainer information:

# a list of nixpkgs attributes affected by the problem
attribute:
# a list of nixos modules affected by the problem
module:

https://github.com/nix-community/nixops-libvirtd/issues/5

[2] https://github.com/nix-community/nixops-libvirtd/blob/master/nix/libvirtd-image.nix#L67

[devhell]

This seems to also be the case with 19.09.

[kisik21]

I seem to be also affected by this issue. I am currently in process of bisecting Nixpkgs to see which commit introduced this behavior.

[kisik21]

It seems like the bug is caused by Nix update from 2.3 to 2.3.1 (Nixpkgs commit 3ab3614e2be95da22716cdc54b846b38a774efbb by @edolstra). ~I am currently testing master to see if the bug is fixed.~ master also exhibits this issue. I think that temporarily reverting the commit in question can fix this issue.

If only one could bisect Nix versions, applying each version to Nixpkgs. I think cloning Nix separately and running git bisect with bad as 2.3.1 and 2.3 good and pointing Nix derivation to cloned source would work, but this could be slow. I think I might need a faster PC to do that.

[edolstra]

The error probably comes from https://github.com/NixOS/nix/blob/804910fb0eeb6a14ec8d6f98c7fd219da8d04581/src/libstore/local-store.cc#L80. You could try to set USER=root in the environment when calling nix-store --load-db.

[kisik21]

@edolstra Right now I'm building Nix 2.3 with update commit in Nixpkgs reverted. I will try adding USER=root next (stashed it for now)

[kisik21]

Reverting the commit fixes the issue. Building with USER=root added to nixos/lib/make-disk-image.nix in the nix-store --load-db... doesn't seem to work.

[ncryptid]

Experiencing this issue as well. Any updates on this?

[eadwu]

The issue in nixops was resolved through https://github.com/nix-community/nixops-libvirtd/pull/4. However the issue in runInLinuxVM probably isn't?

[d4g]

When is the time to mark a package broken?
Amazon support is gone, libvirtd does not work. There wasn't even a small bugfix release to fix the libvirtd issue.
I wanted to look into nixops and I like the idea, but this seems more broken then unstable at the moment.

[samueldr]

Within coming channel bumps of 19.09, 20.03, and unstable, this should be fixed. See #80680.

[nick-korsakov]

@samueldr, I'm on nixos-20.03 channel and still have "error: cannot figure out user name" while deploying on libvirtd.

[samueldr]

Eek, right,

• https://github.com/NixOS/nixops/issues/1216#issuecomment-590116833

I noted there that it wasn't the fix for the Nixops-side issue, but didn't re-open that issue. Sorry.

Though, the issue, in Nixops, has been solved. I don't know why there has not been an update to it to use the now fixed plugin. I am not involved with the Nixops project though.

---

@eadwu I updated the title to better reflect the situation, since runInLinuxVM now doesn't fail under the same situation. Tell me if the title is wrong.

[eadwu]

At the time the issue was created, the bug was in runInLinuxVM [1]. But the new title probably makes more sense, since that was how I found it.

[1] https://github.com/nix-community/nixops-libvirtd/commit/1c29f6c716dad9ad58aa863ebc9575422459bf95#diff-379b2f3643afdd2d648411d50c054080L9

[nick-korsakov]

Is there any fix or workaround for this issue?

I cannot use nixops with libvirtd (this issue) and virtualbox (NixOS/nixops#1207).

[d4g]

Is there any update on this issue? I thought nixops would be a fundamental part of nixos?

[eadwu]

Is this not fixed already on nixops side?

[samueldr]

(not a nixops user) AFAIUI not from a released version.

[devhell]

Almost begs the question if it might be worth considering some kind of funding, similar to what we did for the nix re-write, for NixOps. I feel it's a very fundamental part of NixOS and would benefit from some dedicated work.

[d4g]

Or at least finally mark the package broken, as it is broken (!) for months now. Probably this would lead to a little bit of attention to the issue.

[Xe]

I'm getting this on NixOS 20.09:

prima> these derivations will be built: prima> /nix/store/62r4jjjqvfl146kp0ham952hldwlbdsf-libvirtd-image.drv prima> /nix/store/ig6ii01sxdj48xg7s2rhghsjg918j0qf-libvirtd-ssh-image.drv prima> building '/nix/store/62r4jjjqvfl146kp0ham952hldwlbdsf-libvirtd-image.drv'... prima> Formatting '/nix/store/ixdkdcqlhmkybw1f990f3j91iwl4ba2r-libvirtd-image/image', fmt=qcow2 cluster_size=65536 compression_type=zlib size=10737418240 lazy_refcounts=off refcount_bits=16 prima> cSeaBIOS (version rel-1.13.0-48-gd9c812dda519-prebuilt.qemu.org) prima> prima> prima> iPXE (http://ipxe.org) 00:03.0 CA00 PCI2.10 PnP PMM+2FF8EFC0+2FEEEFC0 CA00 prima> prima> prima> prima> Booting from ROM... prima> Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)... ocloading kernel modules... prima> mounting Nix store... prima> mounting host's temporary directory... prima> starting stage 2 (/nix/store/csbmi2wc2pm1y6hwq10x2i4p7apx1v63-vm-run-stage2) prima> Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab. prima> prima> Information: You may need to update /etc/fstab. prima> prima> mke2fs 1.45.5 (07-Jan-2020) prima> Discarding device blocks: done prima> Creating filesystem with 2621184 4k blocks and 655360 inodes prima> Filesystem UUID: 1851004c-d2f2-4dca-ba31-4b34d68983bd prima> Superblock backups stored on blocks: prima> 32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632 prima> prima> Allocating group tables: done prima> Writing inode tables: done prima> Creating journal (16384 blocks): done prima> Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done prima> prima> tune2fs 1.45.5 (07-Jan-2020) prima> Setting maximal mount count to -1 prima> Setting interval between checks to 0 seconds prima> filling Nix store... prima> error: cannot figure out user name prima> [ 34.804621] reboot: Power down prima> builder for '/nix/store/62r4jjjqvfl146kp0ham952hldwlbdsf-libvirtd-image.drv' failed with exit code 1 prima> cannot build derivation '/nix/store/ig6ii01sxdj48xg7s2rhghsjg918j0qf-libvirtd-ssh-image.drv': 1 dependencies couldn't be built prima> error: build of '/nix/store/ig6ii01sxdj48xg7s2rhghsjg918j0qf-libvirtd-ssh-image.drv' failed