When a single channel is in use, ‘guix search’ understandable traverses nothing but gnu/packages/*.scm:
--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- $ strace -o /tmp/,,s guix search sdfsdf $ grep gnu/services /tmp/,,s $ echo $? 1 --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- But with multiple channels, all of the guile-module-union directory is traversed, and that includes *everything*: --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- $ /tmp/past/bin/guix describe Generacio 1 Dec 11 2020 10:26:58 (nuna) guix-past 829923f repository URL: https://gitlab.inria.fr/guix-hpc/guix-past branch: master commit: 829923f01f894f1e687735627025ada26230832f guix f765577 repository URL: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/guix.git branch: master commit: f765577dec0340d035021d030f17b54a3a5fd6b1 $ strace -o /tmp/,,s /tmp/past/bin/guix search sdfsdf $ grep gnu/services /tmp/,,s stat("/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/share/guile/site/3.0/gnu/services.scm", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0444, st_size=41045, ...}) = 0 stat("/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/lib/guile/3.0/site-ccache/gnu/services.go", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0444, st_size=420021, ...}) = 0 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/lib/guile/3.0/site-ccache/gnu/services.go", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 14 stat("/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/share/guile/site/3.0/gnu/services/shepherd.scm", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0444, st_size=23156, ...}) = 0 stat("/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/lib/guile/3.0/site-ccache/gnu/services/shepherd.go", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0444, st_size=405997, ...}) = 0 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/lib/guile/3.0/site-ccache/gnu/services/shepherd.go", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 14 stat("/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/share/guile/site/3.0/gnu/services/herd.scm", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0444, st_size=10387, ...}) = 0 stat("/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/lib/guile/3.0/site-ccache/gnu/services/herd.go", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0444, st_size=188509, ...}) = 0 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/lib/guile/3.0/site-ccache/gnu/services/herd.go", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 14 stat("/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/share/guile/site/3.0/gnu/services/base.scm", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0444, st_size=110305, ...}) = 0 stat("/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/lib/guile/3.0/site-ccache/gnu/services/base.go", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0444, st_size=2203613, ...}) = 0 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/lib/guile/3.0/site-ccache/gnu/services/base.go", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 14 stat("/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/share/guile/site/3.0/gnu/services/admin.scm", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0444, st_size=12494, ...}) = 0 stat("/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/lib/guile/3.0/site-ccache/gnu/services/admin.go", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0444, st_size=416133, ...}) = 0 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/lib/guile/3.0/site-ccache/gnu/services/admin.go", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 14 stat("/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/share/guile/site/3.0/gnu/services/mcron.scm", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0444, st_size=7667, ...}) = 0 stat("/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/lib/guile/3.0/site-ccache/gnu/services/mcron.go", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0444, st_size=187549, ...}) = 0 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/gnu/store/3jnlvi2akawnxd1jq6m58kxc7nj07phc-guix-module-union/lib/guile/3.0/site-ccache/gnu/services/mcron.go", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 14 --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- This was reported by bdju on #guix, who were getting the new SSH password warning while running ‘guix search’. Ludo’.