Prepare initial image

[adminy]

Is there a way to configure this so that if it cannot connect to host initially, it generates an image file something like what nix build .#nixosConfigurations.nixos.config.system.build.sdImage does?

[NeverBehave]

Not entirely related, and not entirely sure if this is mentioned elsewhere before, but we have been using the following way to init new systems. I would love to make this work tho.

Instantiate

You can get the result via: name=<node-name> colmena eval --instantiate -E "{ nodes, ... }: nodes.\"$name\".config.system.build.toplevel"

New machine setup

Currently the workflow for any new profile/machine setup would be:

1. Having a bootable NixOS environment available for the target, usually boot from USB, with SSH enabled.

• https://github.com/nix-community/nixos-generators

2. Boot the target and setup connection to the machine
3. Setup profile (hive.nix) and related configuration
4. https://gist.github.com/zhaofengli/e986fa7688d6c16872b86c6ae6215c9b

What this script does is to deploy the toplevel directly using boot ssh with specify root.

The usage of this script:

# Prepare your target machine
# e.g.
# mkfs.vfat -n BOOT $TARGET_DISK_1
# mkfs.ext4 -L NIXOS $TARGET_DISK_2
# mkdir /mnt || true
# mount $TARGET_DISK_2 /mnt
# mkdir /mnt/boot || true
# mount $TARGET_DISK_1 /mnt/boot

## Make sure you have the colmena hive changes included
git add .
## The following will build the toplevel, connect to remote and apply profile. 
## READ KNOWN ISSUES below!
./install.sh <node-name> /mnt

I have my own version which dispatch reboot after install if everything went well, and if you want no substitute, see line#102(if you are deploying system without Internet): https://gist.github.com/NeverBehave/25481e005708572a14a7f8d807b0dda0

Known issues

1. You will still need to have SSH access to the machine from the build machine, although you won't need network access without substitute
2. Colmena's deployments specific action won't be triggered. E.g. upload keys. My workaround right now is, after the system has booted, I rerun the normal colmena apply again to have the system fully init.