NixOS guest? #430
Replies: 8 comments 26 replies
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Yes, it would! 😄 The first step is to find a somewhat stable/official location to download cloud images from. The second step is implementing support for the package manager in The third step is trying it out, checking if something is broken, and fixing it. 😈 |
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I am also interested in a NixOS guest and may be able to provide some development. I did try this with the minimal 64-bit iso image I found at NixOS' download. It did not work correctly and I did not see anything in From what I researched NixOS itself has a way to build isos. We could leverage that to build a pared down image with the appropriate configuration to integrate with lima. So we could try step 2 and 3 of what @jandubois notes! |
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great! I think I already roughly know how to do the first step, to create a working qemu image and install additional stuff, via a script, starting from the official/current NixOS .iso image (pulling it from the NixOS archive). I will put this together over the holidays and report back. I am however pretty hazy about the next steps, and will have to look at the repository in detail to see how it works with alpine or arch linux and go from there. I am far from an expert though, help will be much appreciated! |
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Just a quick note that there are 2 different scenarios: booting from an image vs. booting from an ISO. We latter is only done for Alpine right now, and we build a custom ISO to make sure it includes cloud-init (or our own lima-init replacement). Most ISOs are either install or rescue media and do not support this. There is special code in Lima to mount a persistent data volume and move some directories to it, so they survive a reboot. This code probably will need some adjustments if you want to boot NixOS from an ISO instead of a regular image. Let me know if you run into any issues, and I'll try to help out! |
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Apparently NixOS thinks that https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/modules/services/system/cloud-init.nix I don't think it is the python3 itself that is the biggest bloat, but it (ci) does have a truckload of dependencies... |
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If you build you own image, you could also use the |
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You have to fork cloud-init as well, since the list of distros is hardcoded within... So it might be easier to start with lima-init |
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Also registering interest in this development! |
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Today i created my nixos image https://github.com/patryk4815/ctftools/tree/master/lima-vm |
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@patryk4815 wrote:
Why did you choose to do it this way rather than directly use cloud-init? |
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The ability to run and configure NixOS in Lima VMs is important to me. I just got @patryk4815's solution working and need to test it out a little more and learn more about how it works. I would potentially be interested in helping to make this a third-party add-on for Lima (since it is unlikely we'll be able to get it published by Nix.org or by the Lima maintainers.) The first steps would be giving it a dedicated repository with its own top-level README, adding documentation and making minor improvements. I'm not sure if it makes sense to put something like this in nixpkgs, but that could also be an option. I've already made one change to the which works well. (And is one of my favorite Lima features) This week I plan on experimenting with the NixOS VM that I build (and perhaps rebuilding it, etc.) by using it to work on some of my projects and seeing if I can use it to build another NixOS/Lima VM, etc. I would also like to understand the best ways to customize the configuration of NixOS/Lima VMs. There are at least three approaches I can think of:
One example of something I would like to change/customize is to add the "nix-command" and "flakes" features automatically. I would also like to be able to build VMs with particular services installed, etc. |
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@patryk4815 Are you interested in improving or maintaining your solution? I find it useful enough to want to spend at least some time moving it forward. Should I just create a new repository and give you credit, or do you (or anyone else) want to participate? |
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The img is 3.2G, is that expected? The official NixOS ISO is only 1GB. |
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The one I built was 3250585600 bytes. |
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I have found two projects for building Lima-compatible NixOS images on GitHub that are inspired by @patryk4815 's work:
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https://github.com/kasuboski/nixos-lima - this one didn't work for me. It just hung on SSH access. This fork worked: https://github.com/unidevel/nixos-lima. Minor tweaks, mostly to use qcow2 format (reducing image size to 2.4GB vs >3GB). Not sure why it works and the original doesn't. |
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Fixed by https://github.com/unidevel/nixos-lima/blame/main/lima-init.nix#L53, make |
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Back in July I wrote:
My nixos Lima VM that I installed with @patryk4815 's build is now broken -- DNS is not working in the guest. I'm not sure what broke it as I have upgraded both NixOS inside the guest as well as Lima (using Nix Home Manager) on the host. I didn't notice the problem until I restarted the guest VM. There are now at least 4 repositories listed above based on @patryk4815 's original work each with some user-specific customization and various fixes. I found a few more on GitHub. Some have added what look like useful features, but IMHO none of them looks like an ongoing project that other people can use and/or contribute to. Several look like they have made useful enhancements but IMHO none of them meet the criteria I am looking for to build a NixOS LimaVM that I could use for serious work. My criteria are:
Now it's easy to be a critic. The people developing these modules clearly know much more about Nix than I and they have made no promises of support and are clearly under no obligation. And I have limited bandwidth so I don't think I would be able to create neat another repository to solve the issues. I'm just hoping that maybe a few of us can get together and combine our efforts to produce something the community can use and can be maintained long term. Looking at the individual efforts made on the various forks seems to indicate there is enough interest and talent to make this happen. To this Nix novice, it seems like the best approach would be to create (one or more) flakes/modules that can be used to do the core Lima-related magic necessary to emulate
There could then be a separate template repo/flake that shows how to build a starter Lima-compatible image. Decoupling the module(s) from the starter/template repo would make it easier for people to customize to their hearts content, but be able to share the Lima modules and contribute upstream to improve them. Does this make sense? (I'm going to try tagging various people that have forked @patryk4815 's repo and see if we can get some discussion here...) |
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Here's a more complete list:
More can be found by looking at "forks" or "network" from kasuboski/nixos-lima, but the above are the ones that look most active to me. Who is interested in combining efforts and what do people think would be the best way to move forward? |
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I want to pitch some ideas from https://github.com/cpick/nix-rosetta-builder too, it is initially planned as a replacement for
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That looks like a cool project and the features you list are very nice. I personally am interested in building VMs and managing them as services (i.e. via However, I'm not sure how these ideas directly relate to what I am proposing here for Lima. I use Lima for creating long-lived VMs that I use for development and testing. The reasons I use Lima are that it is easy to spin up new VMs and to manage multiple VMs over time -- and the Lima feature set is very nice for that. My use of Lima predates use of Nix/NixOS. For me Lima is a familiar, practical tool that I used to manage Debian and Ubuntu VMs before wanting to add NixOS to the mix. If the VMs are going to be built and managed by Nix I don't see why Lima should be involved -- I think the pure Nix approach would be cool but at that point it has replaced the need for Lima. And I also see that some level of Lima/Colima compatibility might be useful in this Nix-based approach if you are using the VMs for running containers. Are there features in |
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Just wanna include https://github.com/heywoodlh/flakes, the nixos-lima flake worked for me, based on the code it appears to be inspired by @kasuboski and @patryk4815. |
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I would really love to have a NixOS guest -- at the moment I use lima with the nix package manager on an archlinux guest. I think in theory NixOS should work, looking at the stated requirements. I also have a qemu NixOS VM, that works just fine. It does not have the great lima integration features, so I really want it running from lima.
I guess the best way forward would be to just go ahead and do it myself, but I am new to lima and could not (easily) find a thread how to start. Are there some example instructions somewhere, or where should I look to e.g. how it was done for archlinux or Debian?
Any pointers are much appreciated.
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