Deploy a machine
Now that you have created a new machine, we will walk through how to install it.
Prerequisites
General Requirements
- RAM > 2GB
- Two Computers: You need one computer that you're getting ready (we'll call this the Target Computer) and another one to set it up from (we'll call this the Setup Computer). Make sure both can talk to each other over the network using SSH.
- Machine configuration: See our basic adding and configuring machine guide
- Initialized secrets: See secrets for how to initialize your secrets.
- USB Flash Drive: See Clan Installer
Steps
-
Create a NixOS installer image and transfer it to a bootable USB drive as described in the installer.
-
Boot the target machine and connect it to a network that makes it reachable from your setup computer.
- Any cloud machine if it is reachable via SSH and supports
kexec.
NixOS can cause strange issues when booting in certain cloud environments.
If on Linode: Make sure that the system uses Direct Disk boot kernel (found in the configuration pannel)
Setting targetHost
{
inputs.clan-core.url = "https://git.clan.lol/clan/clan-core/archive/main.tar.gz";
inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "clan-core/nixpkgs";
inputs.flake-parts.follows = "clan-core/flake-parts";
inputs.flake-parts.inputs.nixpkgs-lib.follows = "clan-core/nixpkgs";
outputs =
inputs@{ flake-parts, ... }:
flake-parts.lib.mkFlake { inherit inputs; } {
systems = [
"x86_64-linux"
"aarch64-linux"
"x86_64-darwin"
"aarch64-darwin"
];
imports = [ inputs.clan-core.flakeModules.default ];
clan = {
inventory.machines = {
jon = {
# targetHost will get picked up by cli commands
deploy.targetHost = "root@jon";
};
};
};
};
}
{
inputs.clan-core.url = "https://git.clan.lol/clan/clan-core/archive/main.tar.gz";
inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "clan-core/nixpkgs";
outputs =
{ self, clan-core, ... }:
let
clan = clan-core.lib.clan {
inherit self;
inventory.machines = {
jon = {
# targetHost will get picked up by cli commands
deploy.targetHost = "root@jon";
};
};
};
in
{
inherit (clan.config)
nixosConfigurations
nixosModules
clanInternals
darwinConfigurations
darwinModules
;
};
}
Warning
The use of root@ in the target address implies SSH access as the root user.
Ensure that the root login is secured and only used when necessary.
Identify the Target Disk
On the setup computer, SSH into the target:
Replace <IP> with the machine's IP or hostname if mDNS (i.e. Avahi) is available.
Which should show something like:
NAME ID-LINK FSTYPE SIZE MOUNTPOINT
sda usb-ST_16GB_AA6271026J1000000509-0:0 14.9G
├─sda1 usb-ST_16GB_AA6271026J1000000509-0:0-part1 1M
├─sda2 usb-ST_16GB_AA6271026J1000000509-0:0-part2 vfat 100M /boot
└─sda3 usb-ST_16GB_AA6271026J1000000509-0:0-part3 ext4 2.9G /
nvme0n1 nvme-eui.e8238fa6bf530001001b448b4aec2929 476.9G
├─nvme0n1p1 nvme-eui.e8238fa6bf530001001b448b4aec2929-part1 vfat 512M
├─nvme0n1p2 nvme-eui.e8238fa6bf530001001b448b4aec2929-part2 ext4 459.6G
└─nvme0n1p3 nvme-eui.e8238fa6bf530001001b448b4aec2929-part3 swap 16.8G
Look for the top-level disk device (e.g., nvme0n1 or sda) and copy its ID-LINK. Avoid using partition IDs like nvme0n1p1.
In this example we would copy nvme-eui.e8238fa6bf530001001b448b4aec2929
Tip
For advanced partitioning, see Disko templates or Disko examples.
Fill in hardware specific machine configuration
Edit the following fields inside the ./machines/<machine_name>/configuration.nix
{
imports = [
# contains your disk format and partitioning configuration.
../../modules/disko.nix
# this file is shared among all machines
../../modules/shared.nix
# enables GNOME desktop (optional)
../../modules/gnome.nix
];
# Put your username here for login
users.users.user.name = "__YOUR_USERNAME__";
# Replace this __CHANGE_ME__ with the copied result of the lsblk command
disko.devices.disk.main.device = "/dev/disk/by-id/__CHANGE_ME__";
# IMPORTANT! Add your SSH key here
# e.g. > cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
users.users.root.openssh.authorizedKeys.keys = [ "__YOUR_SSH_KEY__" ];
# ...
}
Replace __YOUR_USERNAME__ with the ip of your machine, if you use avahi you can also use your hostname
Replace __CHANGE_ME__ with the appropriate ID-LINK identifier, such as nvme-eui.e8238fa6bf530001001b448b4aec2929
Replace __YOUR_SSH_KEY__ with your personal key, like ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAILoMI0NC5eT9pHlQExrvR5ASV3iW9+BXwhfchq0smXUJ jon@jon-desktop
Deploy the machine
Finally deployment time! Use the following command to build and deploy the image via SSH onto your machine.
The installer will generate a password and local addresses on boot, then run ssh with these preconfigured. The installer shows it's deployment relevant information in two formats, a text form, as well as a QR code.
Sample boot screen shows:
- Root password
- IP address
- Optional Tor and mDNS details
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ┌───────────────────────────┐ │
│ │███████████████████████████│ # This is the QR Code (1) │
│ │██ ▄▄▄▄▄ █▀▄█▀█▀▄█ ▄▄▄▄▄ ██│ │
│ │██ █ █ █▀▄▄▄█ ▀█ █ █ ██│ │
│ │██ █▄▄▄█ █▀▄ ▀▄▄▄█ █▄▄▄█ ██│ │
│ │██▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█▄▀ ▀▄▀▄█▄▄▄▄▄▄▄██│ │
│ │███▀▀▀ █▄▄█ ▀▄ ▄▀▄█ ███│ │
│ │██▄██▄▄█▄▄▀▀██▄▀ ▄▄▄ ▄▀█▀██│ │
│ │██ ▄▄▄▄▄ █▄▄▄▄ █ █▄█ █▀ ███│ │
│ │██ █ █ █ █ █ ▄▄▄ ▄▀▀ ██│ │
│ │██ █▄▄▄█ █ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▀█ ▄███│ │
│ │██▄▄▄▄▄▄▄█▄▄▄▄▄▄█▄▄▄▄▄█▄███│ │
│ │███████████████████████████│ │
│ └───────────────────────────┘ │
│ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │Root password: cheesy-capital-unwell # password (2) │ │
│ │Local network addresses: │ │
│ │enp1s0 UP 192.168.178.169/24 metric 1024 fe80::21e:6ff:fe45:3c92/64 │ │
│ │enp2s0 DOWN │ │
│ │wlan0 DOWN # connect to wlan (3) │ │
│ │Onion address: 6evxy5yhzytwpnhc2vpscrbti3iktxdhpnf6yim6bbs25p4v6beemzyd.onion │ │
│ │Multicast DNS: nixos-installer.local │ │
│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
│ Press 'Ctrl-C' for console access │
│ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
-
This is not an actual QR code, because it is displayed rather poorly on text sites. This would be the actual content of this specific QR code prettified:
{ "pass": "cheesy-capital-unwell", "tor": "6evxy5yhzytwpnhc2vpscrbti3iktxdhpnf6yim6bbs25p4v6beemzyd.onion", "addrs": [ "2001:9e8:347:ca00:21e:6ff:fe45:3c92" ] }To generate the actual QR code, that would be displayed use:
-
The root password for the installer medium. This password is autogenerated and meant to be easily typeable.
- See how to connect to wlan.
Tip
Use KDE Connect for easyily sharing QR codes from phone to desktop
Just run the command Option B: Cloud VM below
Deployment Commands
Using password auth
Using QR JSON
Using QR image file
Option B: Cloud VM
Success
Your machine is all set up. 🎉 🚀
Post-Deployment: Updating Machines
Updating
Update a single machine:
Update all machines:
Build Host Configuration
If a machine is too resource-limited, use another host.
If the machine does not have enough resources to run the NixOS evaluation or build itself, it is also possible to specify a build host.
During an update, the CLI will SSH into the build host and run nixos-rebuild from there.
Excluding from Automatic Updates
To exclude machines from being updated when running clan machines update without any machines specified,
one can set the clan.deployment.requireExplicitUpdate option to true:
This is useful for machines that are not always online or are not part of the regular update cycle.