[Nix-dev] How do you manage bare-metal local servers with nixops

[rohit yadav]

Hi Zimbatm,

I have very similar arrangement. I use git and to keep the configuration
synced. However, I wish to use NixOps, I haven't been able to find time to
do that. From the documentation I could not figure out how to deploy on
bare-metal. But as Christoph mentioned that a simple Ip-Address in the
network is all you need with nixops do deploy. It will remove lot of boiler
plate configuration I have to write on each system.

Thanks,
Rohit

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 3:33 PM, zimbatm <zimbatm at zimbatm.com> wrote:

> Hi rohit,
>
> Personally I just have a folder per machine with the /etc/nixos folder and
> a little script that runs rsync + `nixos-rebuild --switch` on the target
> machine.
>
> Over time I will probably switch to using nixops as well but for a start
> it's working super well for me. Especially since it doesn't have any nix
> dependency on the source machine. It takes just a couple of seconds to
> deploy which is way better than anything I had in the past (ansible,
> puppet, capistrano, ...).
> On Thu, 10 Dec 2015 20:45 Christoph Hrdinka <c.nix-dev at hrdinka.at> wrote:
>
>> Hi Rohit!
>>
>> You can use nixops to deploy to any server running ssh. All you have to
>> do is install a basic NixOS system with opensshd enabled on your target
>> server. Then tell nixops the hostname/ip address of the new server
>> via `deployment.targetHost`.
>>
>> Nixops will evaluate any nix expression you give it. If you supply
>> multiple files these will be merged. Your nix expression must yield an
>> attribute set of the following form:
>>
>> {
>>   someMachineName =
>>     { config, lib, pkgs, ... }:
>>     {
>>       deployment.targetHost = "hostname or ip";
>>       # your usual nixos configuration file
>>       # ...
>>     }
>>
>>   anotherMachine =
>>     {....}
>> }
>>
>> Every machine described in there will be deployed according to your
>> configuation. Since it is a normal nix expression you can use any way
>> to produce it. You can have basic templates that will be merged and
>> overwritten by more specific ones, write everything in one file, spread
>> it over hundret files or write a configuration syntax from which nix
>> will derive all actual server configs.
>>
>> For what exactly do you need PXE? Is it for the initial NixOS install
>> or do you want to use it because it worked for you till now with other
>> systems?
>> If you want it because of less configuration work it may be the wrong
>> tool for a NixOS setup. Nixops is much better suited for this job than
>> any PXE setup could ever be. It is made for simple deployment of
>> hundrets of machines.
>>
>> You might also want to have a look at disnix/disnixos.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Christoph Hrdinka.
>> _______________________________________________
>> nix-dev mailing list
>> nix-dev at lists.science.uu.nl
>> http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> nix-dev mailing list
> nix-dev at lists.science.uu.nl
> http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.science.uu.nl/pipermail/nix-dev/attachments/20151214/dcae5de9/attachment.html