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guix challenge
Do the binaries provided by this server really correspond to the source code
it claims to build? Is a package build process deterministic? These are the
questions the guix challenge
command attempts to answer.
The former is obviously an important question: Before using a substitute server (see Substitutos), one had better verify that it provides the right binaries, and thus challenge it. The latter is what enables the former: If package builds are deterministic, then independent builds of the package should yield the exact same result, bit for bit; if a server provides a binary different from the one obtained locally, it may be either corrupt or malicious.
We know that the hash that shows up in /gnu/store file names is the
hash of all the inputs of the process that built the file or
directory—compilers, libraries, build scripts,
etc. (see Introdução). Assuming deterministic build processes, one
store file name should map to exactly one build output. guix
challenge
checks whether there is, indeed, a single mapping by comparing
the build outputs of several independent builds of any given store item.
The command output looks like this:
$ guix challenge \ --substitute-urls="https://ci.guix.gnu.org https://guix.example.org" \ openssl git pius coreutils grep updating substitutes from 'https://ci.guix.gnu.org'... 100.0% updating substitutes from 'https://guix.example.org'... 100.0% /gnu/store/…-openssl-1.0.2d contents differ: local hash: 0725l22r5jnzazaacncwsvp9kgf42266ayyp814v7djxs7nk963q https://ci.guix.gnu.org/nar/…-openssl-1.0.2d: 0725l22r5jnzazaacncwsvp9kgf42266ayyp814v7djxs7nk963q https://guix.example.org/nar/…-openssl-1.0.2d: 1zy4fmaaqcnjrzzajkdn3f5gmjk754b43qkq47llbyak9z0qjyim differing files: /lib/libcrypto.so.1.1 /lib/libssl.so.1.1 /gnu/store/…-git-2.5.0 contents differ: local hash: 00p3bmryhjxrhpn2gxs2fy0a15lnip05l97205pgbk5ra395hyha https://ci.guix.gnu.org/nar/…-git-2.5.0: 069nb85bv4d4a6slrwjdy8v1cn4cwspm3kdbmyb81d6zckj3nq9f https://guix.example.org/nar/…-git-2.5.0: 0mdqa9w1p6cmli6976v4wi0sw9r4p5prkj7lzfd1877wk11c9c73 differing file: /libexec/git-core/git-fsck /gnu/store/…-pius-2.1.1 contents differ: local hash: 0k4v3m9z1zp8xzzizb7d8kjj72f9172xv078sq4wl73vnq9ig3ax https://ci.guix.gnu.org/nar/…-pius-2.1.1: 0k4v3m9z1zp8xzzizb7d8kjj72f9172xv078sq4wl73vnq9ig3ax https://guix.example.org/nar/…-pius-2.1.1: 1cy25x1a4fzq5rk0pmvc8xhwyffnqz95h2bpvqsz2mpvlbccy0gs differing file: /share/man/man1/pius.1.gz … 5 store items were analyzed: - 2 (40.0%) were identical - 3 (60.0%) differed - 0 (0.0%) were inconclusive
In this example, guix challenge
queries all the substitute servers
for each of the fives packages specified on the command line. It then
reports those store items for which the servers obtained a result different
from the local build (if it exists) and/or different from one another; here,
the ‘local hash’ lines indicate that a local build result was available
for each of these packages and shows its hash.
As an example, guix.example.org
always gets a different answer.
Conversely, ci.guix.gnu.org
agrees with local builds,
except in the case of Git. This might indicate that the build process of
Git is non-deterministic, meaning that its output varies as a function of
various things that Guix does not fully control, in spite of building
packages in isolated environments (see Recursos). Most common sources
of non-determinism include the addition of timestamps in build results, the
inclusion of random numbers, and directory listings sorted by inode number.
See https://reproducible-builds.org/docs/, for more information.
To find out what is wrong with this Git binary, the easiest approach is to run:
guix challenge git \ --diff=diffoscope \ --substitute-urls="https://ci.guix.gnu.org https://guix.example.org"
This automatically invokes diffoscope
, which displays detailed
information about files that differ.
Alternatively, we can do something along these lines (see Invocando guix archive
):
$ wget -q -O - https://ci.guix.gnu.org/nar/lzip/…-git-2.5.0 \ | lzip -d | guix archive -x /tmp/git $ diff -ur --no-dereference /gnu/store/…-git.2.5.0 /tmp/git
This command shows the difference between the files resulting from the local
build, and the files resulting from the build on
ci.guix.gnu.org
(see Comparing and Merging
Files in Comparing and Merging Files). The diff
command works great for text files. When binary files differ, a better
option is Diffoscope, a tool that helps
visualize differences for all kinds of files.
Once you have done that work, you can tell whether the differences are due
to a non-deterministic build process or to a malicious server. We try hard
to remove sources of non-determinism in packages to make it easier to verify
substitutes, but of course, this is a process that involves not just Guix,
but a large part of the free software community. In the meantime,
guix challenge
is one tool to help address the problem.
If you are writing packages for Guix, you are encouraged to check whether
ci.guix.gnu.org
and other substitute servers obtain the
same build result as you did with:
guix challenge package
The general syntax is:
guix challenge options argument…
where argument is a package specification such as guile@2.0
or
glibc:debug
or, alternatively, a store file name as returned, for
example, by guix build
or guix gc --list-live
.
When a difference is found between the hash of a locally-built item and that of a server-provided substitute, or among substitutes provided by different servers, the command displays it as in the example above and its exit code is 2 (other non-zero exit codes denote other kinds of errors).
The one option that matters is:
--substitute-urls=urls
Consider urls the whitespace-separated list of substitute source URLs to compare to.
--diff=mode
Upon mismatches, show differences according to mode, one of:
simple
(the default)Show the list of files that differ.
diffoscope
Invoke Diffoscope, passing it two directories whose contents do not match.
When command is an absolute file name, run command instead of Diffoscope.
nenhuma
Do not show further details about the differences.
Thus, unless --diff=none is passed, guix challenge
downloads the store items from the given substitute servers so that it can
compare them.
--verbose
-v
Show details about matches (identical contents) in addition to information about mismatches.
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