demo

Demo - Deploy via Colmena

Colmena is my personal choice mainly for remote deployment, but you can use other tools like nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#opi5 to deploy your configuration locally. However, I won’t cover them in this guide.

This is a demo of how to deploy NixOS to a remote server (or to localhost) using colmena.

If you're not familiar with remote deployment, please read this tutorial first: Remote Deployment - NixOS & Flakes Book.

Configure Deployment Options

We’ve added options to the flake.nix to allow for flexible deployment types. You can now choose between UEFI or U-Boot boot configurations, as well as configure your deployment for local or remote compilation.

Available Options

1. Boot Type: Choose between UEFI and U-Boot.

   • Set the bootType in flake.nix:

     bootType = "uefi";  # Or use "u-boot"

2. Compilation Type: Choose how and where the system will be built.

   • Set the compilationType to one of the following:
     • "local-native": Builds natively on the ARM-based device (local).
     • "remote-native": Builds natively on a remote ARM-based device.
     • "cross": Cross-compiles on your x86_64 machine for ARM.

   Example in flake.nix:

   compilationType = "cross";  # Options: "local-native", "remote-native", "cross"

3. System Architecture: This is automatically configured based on your chosen compilation type.

Example Configuration in flake.nix

Here’s an example snippet from flake.nix:

bootType = "uefi";  # Options: "uefi" or "u-boot"
compilationType = "cross";  # Options: "local-native", "remote-native", or "cross"

---

Deploy to a Remote Server

To deploy to a remote server, first modify flake.nix to set the bootType and compilationType options to fit your needs.

Then, run the following command to deploy the configuration to your remote server:

The first time you run this command, it may take 40 minutes to a few hours to build the system, but future builds will be much faster.

nix run nixpkgs#colmena apply

Deploy Locally

For local native compilation (building the system directly on the device), you can set the compilation type to "local-native" in flake.nix.

1. Set:

   compilationType = "local-native";

2. Optionally adjust the boot type (bootType) for either UEFI or U-Boot.

Then, run the following command to deploy locally:

nix run nixpkgs#colmena apply-local

---

Summary of Options

• bootType:
  • "uefi": Use UEFI bootloader.
  • "u-boot": Use U-Boot bootloader.
• compilationType:
  • "local-native": Native compilation on the local ARM device.
  • "remote-native": Native compilation on a remote ARM device.
  • "cross": Cross-compilation from an x86_64 machine for ARM.

Real-World Examples

Here are some real-world examples of how to deploy NixOS to your SBCs using flakes:

• https://github.com/HeroBrine1st/flake
• https://github.com/ryan4yin/nixos-config-sbc
  • Key Differnece: this repo use disko to format & mount the disk automatically.