[Nix-dev] Trouble installing NixOS from ISO

[Bárður Árantsson]

Hi,

I've been attempting to install NixOS from the ISO at

http://nix.cs.uu.nl/dist/nix/nixos-unstable-latest/nixos-x86_64-linux.iso

but I'm not having much luck. I'm running in a virtual machine (KVM), 
and I've followed the steps listed on

   http://nix.cs.uu.nl/dist/nix/nixos-unstable-latest/manual/#id2501951

The trouble is, when I run the nixos-install step, Nix dies while trying 
to building the path

   /nix/store/<HASH_REMOVED>-sudoers

The error message is

   "visudo: you don't exist in the passwd database"

and Nix then just says

    builder for '/nix/store/...-sudoers.drv' failed with exit code 1
    cannot build derivation '..../etc.drv': 1 inputs could not be realised
    (etc.etc.)

Am I missing some crucial step?

I've also tried building an ISO myself with a more recent 
Nix+Nixpkgs+NixOS, but I'm not having better luck with that either. It 
seems to chug along quite happily until it wants to build ssh. At that 
point the build process stops at:

mkdir /nix/store/ijwss48j4w415y5bhjnfdcnaw8dxfy5s-openssh-4.6p1/etc
cp: cannot create regular file 
`/nix/store/ijwss48j4w415y5bhjnfdcnaw8dxfy5s-openssh-4.6p1/share/man/cat1/': 
Is a directory
builder for 
`/nix/store/gnljm6cz8sh97wwvygli70l89i841asc-openssh-4.6p1.drv' failed 
with exit code 1
cannot build derivation 
`/nix/store/d6il0q613k1skw77cmdmllb56361j0hr-system-path.drv': 1 inputs 
could not be realised
substituting path 
`/nix/store/7zjry943q8p0srf9v9zgskknahmbn0m7-klibc-1.5.tar.bz2' using 
substituter `/nix/libexec/nix/download-using-manifests.pl'
cannot build derivation 
`/nix/store/f17mgkwpjnsdxb8iy91v6jvfyv2ssi8f-system.drv': 1 inputs could 
not be realised
killing process 21086
cannot build derivation 
`/nix/store/cyn3y87402kmqgc9lyhmxdzys30h6b79-iso9660-image.drv': 1 
inputs could not be realised
error: build of 
`/nix/store/cyn3y87402kmqgc9lyhmxdzys30h6b79-iso9660-image.drv' failed

(Hope that's readable, thundbird seems to want to word wrap it.)

Is there anything I can do to get it to build ssh?

Cheers,

-- 
Bardur Arantsson
<bardurREMOVE at THISscientician.net>

If someone annoys you, it takes 42 muscles to frown, but it only
takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and whack them in the head.