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Access to Server

Access to the server is required before proceeding with any of the steps below.

1. Infrastructure Setup

Adding a Volume to a Pool

There are three existing pools — each is a disk with an image set at a specific path. Each pool contains multiple volumes.

Pool Status
default Nearly full — limited space to increase size
alternative Nearly full — limited space to increase size
alternative2 Free pool — use this if needed
  • If volumes need to be moved, migrate them to alternative2.

Choosing a Base Image

  • Use v4 (recommended) — v2 is the older image.
  • The VM operates using the base image and applies overlay image changes on top.
  • The backing image must be in the same pool as the VM — it cannot reference a pool that differs.
  • Generate the base image inside the target pool before creating the VM.
  • Different pools use different version naming to keep images organized.
  • A new image version = new version of NixOS packages.

Relevant scripts:

Script Purpose
build.sh Builds an image for the NixOS configuration
deploy.sh Downloads and installs new packages (deploys NixOS configuration)

Uploading the Volume

After building the image, upload it to the pool:

vol-upload --pool alternative2 minimal-base-v4 --file result/nixos.qcow2

2. Network Configuration

  • To resolve URLs inside the VM, add the domain to network hosts in the private network section of the config.
  • Each VM's address in Network Interfaces must be unique.

3. VM Configuration (infra.nix)

  1. Add the VM configuration under domains in infra.nix.
  2. Set a unique address in Network Interfaces.
  3. After editing, generate the deployment bash script:
nix-build -A config.toplevel gen.nix -I infra=./infra.nix

4. Deployment

SSH Access

Assign server SSH access to the user deploying the script (inside infra/result).

Set up the SSH agent and add your key:

eval $(ssh-agent)
ssh-add ~/.ssh/lpm

Machine Configuration

  1. Once the script is built, create a config for the new machine inside the machines/ folder.
  2. Use the same name as the hostname defined in infra.nix.
  3. Create a folder with that hostname and add the proper NixOS configuration.

Systems — SSH Public Key

In systems, add the SSH public key for the VM's hostname.

GitHub Access Token

Add the access token to the NixOS config with the github: prefix:

access-tokens = github.com=TOKEN

Verification

Before committing changes, SSH into the VM to verify it was created successfully.

Deploy Script

Add the hostname to the deploy script on the server so the VM is deployed alongside other machines.