[Nix-dev] On the sad state of remote-builds for the end-user

[Matthias Beyer]

On 15-06-2016 11:10:09, zimbatm wrote:
> my build machine is currently down but I used to have something like this:
> HOWTO remote builds
> 
>    - client: your laptop
>    - build machine: the server that has tons of CPU
> 
> On the build machine, install your client’s ssh public in the
> /root/.ssh/authorized_keys.

Is your build machine a nixos machine or a non-nixos with nix installed? If the
latter: How did you install nix? I assume as root user, right?

> 
> On the client add something like this in your configuration.nix:
> 
> {
>   networking.extraHosts = ''
>     # FIX THE IP HERE
>     192.168.0.8 my-build-machine
>   '';
>   nix.maxJobs = 1; # set to 0 to force remote building
>   nix.distributedBuilds = true;
>   nix.buildMachines = [
>     { hostName = "my-build-machine"; # I have the hostname in my extraHosts
>       maxJobs = 6; # set to number of CPUs
>       sshKey = "/home/myuser/.ssh/id_ecdsa";
>       sshUser = "root";
>       system = "x86_64-linux";
>     }
>   ];
> }
> 
> Apply the config. You should be good to.
> Missing things
> 
> In cases where the laptop is on another network you want to disable the
> distributed build. Especially if maxJobs = 0 you could end up in a
> situation where you can’t build the new configuration because of that. I’m
> sure there is a command-line or environment variable to change that config
> at runtime but I don’t know how to switch this.

That's the point: I don't want to disable it on commandline if I have to, but to
enable it on commandline if I have the possibility to do distributed builds.
I played around with `<nix command> --option` and setting configuration there,
but I failed to get it working. I did not install nix on the remote machine as
root, though. That might be the point.

-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Kind regards,
Matthias Beyer

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