I just wonder how long does it take for a medium experience user to figure it outhttps://github.com/elitak/nixos-infect Just check the page out. I wonder how well did it work for you?
NixOS-Infect What is this? A script to install NixOS on non-NixOS hosts.
NixOS-Infect is so named because of the high likelihood of rendering a system inoperable. Use with extreme caution and preferably only on newly provisioned systems.
This script has successfully been tested on at least the follow hosting providers and plans:
DigitalOcean Hetzner Cloud Vultr Interserver VPS Tencent Cloud Lighthouse OVHcloud Oracle Cloud Infrastructure GalaxyGate Cockbox Google Cloud Platform Contabo Liga Hosting AWS Lightsail Windcloud Clouding.io Scaleway RackNerd Should you find that it works on your hoster, feel free to update this README and issue a pull request.
Motivation Motivation for this script: nixos-assimilate should supplant this script entirely, if it's ever completed. nixos-in-place was quite broken when I tried it, and also took a pretty janky approach that was substantially more complex than this (although it supported more platforms): it didn't install to root (/nixos instead), left dregs of the old filesystem (almost always unnecessary since starting from a fresh deployment), and most importantly, simply didn't work for me! (old system was being because grub wasnt properly reinstalled)
How do I use it? Read and understand the the script Deploy any custom configuration you want on your host Deploy your host as non-Nix Operating System. Deploy an SSH key for the root user. NB: This step is important. The root user will not have a password when nixos-infect runs to completion. To enable root login, you must have an SSH key configured.
run the script with: curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elitak/nixos-infect/master/nixos-infect | NIX_CHANNEL=nixos-23.05 bash -x NB: This script wipes out the targeted host's root filesystem when it runs to completion. Any errors halt execution. A failure will leave the system in an inconsistent state, and so it is advised to run with bash -x.
Hoster notes: Digital Ocean You may utilize Digital Ocean's "user data" mechanism (found in the Web UI or HTTP API), and supply to it the following example yaml stanzas:
#cloud-config
runcmd:
- curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elitak/nixos-infect/master/nixos-infect | PROVIDER=digitalocean NIX_CHANNEL=nixos-23.05 bash 2>&1 | tee /tmp/infect.log Potential tweaks: /etc/nixos/{,hardware-}configuration.nix: rudimentary mostly static config /etc/nixos/networking.nix: networking settings determined at runtime tweak if no ipv6, different number of adapters, etc. #cloud-config write_files:
- path: /etc/nixos/host.nix
permissions: '0644'
content: |
{pkgs, ...}:
{
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ vim ];
}
runcmd:
- curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elitak/nixos-infect/master/nixos-infect | PROVIDER=digitalocean NIXOS_IMPORT=./host.nix NIX_CHANNEL=nixos-23.05 bash 2>&1 | tee /tmp/infect.log Tested on Distribution Name Status test date CentOS 6.9 x32 failure 2020-03-30 CentOS 6.9 x64 failure 2020-03-30 CentOS 7.6 x64 failure 2020-03-30 CentOS 8.1 x64 success 2020-03-30 CoreOS 2345.3.0 (stable) unable 2020-03-30 CoreOS 2411.1.0 (beta) unable 2020-03-30 CoreOS 2430.0.0 (alpha) unable 2020-03-30 Debian 10.3 x64 success 2020-03-30 Debian 9.12 x64 success 2020-03-30 Debian 11 x64 success 2023-11-12 Fedora 30 x64 success 2020-03-30 Fedora 31 x64 success 2020-03-30 FreeBSD 11.3 x64 ufs failure 2020-03-30 FreeBSD 11.3 x64 zfs failure 2020-03-30 FreeBSD 12.1 x64 ufs failure 2020-03-30 FreeBSD 12.1 x64 zfs failure 2020-03-30 RancherOS v1.5.5 unable 2020-03-30 Ubuntu 16.04.6 (LTS) x32 success 2020-03-30 Ubuntu 16.04.6 (LTS) x64 success 2020-03-30 Ubuntu 18.04.3 (LTS) x64 success 2020-03-30 Ubuntu 19.10 x64 success 2020-03-30 Ubuntu 20.04 x64 success 2022-03-23 Ubuntu 22.04 x64 success 2023-06-05 Ubuntu 22.10 x64 failure 2023-06-05 Ubuntu 23.10 x64 failure 2023-11-16 Vultr To set up a NixOS Vultr server, instantiate an Ubuntu box with the following "Cloud-Init User-Data":
#!/bin/sh
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elitak/nixos-infect/master/nixos-infect | NIX_CHANNEL=nixos-23.05 bash Allow for a few minutes over the usual Ubuntu deployment time for NixOS to download & install itself.
Tested on Distribution Name Status test date Ubuntu 18.10 x64 success (Unknown) Ubuntu 22.04 x64 success 2022-07-04 Hetzner cloud Hetzner cloud works out of the box. When creating a server provide the following yaml as "Cloud config":
#cloud-config
runcmd:
- curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elitak/nixos-infect/master/nixos-infect | PROVIDER=hetznercloud NIX_CHANNEL=nixos-23.05 bash 2>&1 | tee /tmp/infect.log Tested on Distribution Name Status test date Debian 11 success 2023-04-29 Debian 12 aarch64 success 2023-09-02 Ubuntu 20.04 x64 success (Unknown) Ubuntu 22.04 x64 success 2023-04-29 Ubuntu 22.04 aarch64 success 2023-04-16 InterServer VPS Tested on Distribution Name Status test date Debian 9 success 2021-01-29 Debian 10 success 2021-01-29 Ubuntu 20.04 success 2021-01-29 Ubuntu 18.04 success 2021-01-29 Ubuntu 14.04 success 2021-01-29 Tencent Cloud Lighthouse Tencent Cloud Lighthouse Hong Kong Region Works out of the box.
Other Regions in China may not work because of the unreliable connection between China and global Internet or GFW.
Tested on Distribution Name Status test date Debian 10 success 2021-03-11 OVHcloud Before executing the install script, you may need to check your mounts with df -h. By default, OVH adds a relatively short in memory tmpfs mount on the /tmp folder, so the install script runs short in memory and fails. Just execute umount /tmp before launching the install script. Full install process described here
Distribution Name Status test date Arch Linux Arch Linux x86-64 success 2021-03-25 Debian 10 success 2021-04-29 Debian 11 success 2021-11-17 Ubuntu 22.04 success 2022-06-19 Ubuntu 23.04 Fails 2023-06-01 The 23.04 Ubuntu distribution fails to boot, due to the following error:
/dev/sda1 has unsupported feature(s): FEATURE_C12
e2fsck: Get a newer version of e2fsck Using an older Ubuntu version fixes this issue.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Tested for both VM.Standard.E2.1.Micro (x86) and VM.Standard.A1.Flex (AArch64) instances.
Tested on Distribution Name Status test date Shape Oracle Linux 7.9 success 2021-05-31 Ubuntu 20.04 success 2022-03-23 Ubuntu 20.04 success 2022-04-19 free arm Oracle Linux 8.0 -failure- 2022-04-19 free amd CentOS 8.0 -failure- 2022-04-19 free amd Oracle Linux 7.9[1] success 2022-04-19 free amd Ubuntu 22.04 success 2022-11-13 free arm Oracle Linux 9.1[2] success 2023-03-29 free arm Oracle Linux 8.7[3] success 2023-06-06 free amd AlmaLinux OS 9.2.20230516 success 2023-07-05 free arm [1] The Oracle 7.9 layout has 200Mb for /boot 8G for swap PR#100 Adopted 8G Swap device [2] OL9.1 had 2GB /boot, 100MB /boot/efi (nixos used as /boot) and swapfile [3] Both 22.11 and 23.05 failed to boot, but installing 22.05 and then upgrading worked out as intended. Aliyun ECS Aliyun ECS tested on ecs.s6-c1m2.large, region cn-shanghai, needs a few tweaks:
replace nix binary cache with tuna mirror (with instructions in the page) Tested on Distribution Name Status test date Ubuntu 20.04 success 2021-12-28 Ubuntu 22.04 success 2023-04-05 GalaxyGate Tested on Distribution Name Status test date Ubuntu 20.04 success 2022-04-02 Cockbox Requred some Xen modules to work out, after that NixOS erected itself without a hinch.
Tested on Distribution Name Status test date Ubuntu 20.04 success 2022-06-12 Google Cloud Platform Tested on Distribution Name Status test date Machine type Debian 11 success 2023-11-12 ec2-micro Debian (Amd64) 11 success 2023-11-12 Ubuntu on Ampere Altra (Arm64) 20.04 success 2022-09-07 Ubuntu 20.04 success 2022-09-07 Ampere Ultra Ubuntu 20.04 -failure- 2023-11-12 ec2-micro Contabo Tested on Cloud VPS. Contabo sets the hostname to something like vmi######.contaboserver.net, Nixos only allows RFC 1035 compliant hostnames (see here). Run hostname something_without_dots before running the script. If you run the script before changing the hostname - remove the /etc/nixos/configuration.nix so it's regenerated with the new hostname.
Tested on Distribution Name Status test date Ubuntu 22.04 success 2022-09-26 Liga Hosting Liga Hosting works without any issue. You'll need to add your ssh key to the host either during build time or using ssh-copy-id before running nixos-infect
#!/bin/sh
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elitak/nixos-infect/master/nixos-infect | NIX_CHANNEL=nixos-23.05 bash 2>&1 | tee /tmp/infect.log Tested on Distribution Name Status test date Debian 11 success 2022-12-01 Ubuntu 20.04 success 2022-12-01 Ubuntu 22.04 success 2022-12-01 AWS Lightsail Make sure to set PROVIDER="lightsail".
Setting a root ssh key manually is not necessary, the key provided as part of the instance launch process will be used.
If you run into issues, debug using the most similar ec2 instance that is on the Nitro platform. Nitro platform instances have a serial console that allow you to troubleshoot boot issues, and Lightsail instances are just EC2 with a different pricing model and UI.
Windcloud Tested on vServer. The network configuration seems to be important so the same tweaks as for DigitalOcean are necessary (see above).
Tested on Distribution Name Status test date Ubuntu 20.04 success 2022-12-09 ServArica Requires the same static network settings that Digital Ocean does.
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elitak/nixos-infect/master/nixos-infect | PROVIDER=servarica NIX_CHANNEL=nixos-23.05 bash Tested on Distribution Name Status test date Debian 11.4 success 2022-12-12 Ubuntu 20.04 success 2022-11-26 Clouding.io I could not get it to run via UserData scripts, but downloading and executing the script worked flawlessly.
Tested on Distribution Name Status test date Debian 11 success 2022-12-20 Scaleway As of November 2020, it is easy to get a NixOS VM running on Scaleway by using nixos-infect and Scaleway's support for cloud init. All that is needed is to follow the nixos-infect recipe for Digital Ocean, removing the Digital Ocean-specific stuff. So, pragmatically, start an Ubuntu or Fedora VM and use something like the following as your cloud-init startup script:
#cloud-config write_files:
- path: /etc/nixos/host.nix
permissions: '0644'
content: |
{pkgs, ...}:
{
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ tmux ];
}
runcmd:
- curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elitak/nixos-infect/master/nixos-infect | NIXOS_IMPORT=./host.nix NIX_CHANNEL=nixos-23.05 bash 2>&1 | tee /tmp/infect.log Tested on Distribution Name Status test date Ubuntu 20.04 success 2020-11-?? RackNerd Remember that the SSH keys are not automatically generated/uploaded, so you need to create them as usual with ssh-keygen or some other means, add the public key to the .ssh/authorized_keys file on the remote host, and have a copy of the private key on your local box.
On RackNerd's Ubuntu 20.04, there's no curl by default, so wget -O- needs to be used instead:
wget -O- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/elitak/nixos-infect/master/nixos-infect | NIX_CHANNEL=nixos-23.05 bash -x
Tested on Distribution Name Status test date AlmaLinux 8 failure (tar missing) 2023-08-29 Ubuntu 20.04 success 2023-08-29