Nixinate 🕶️

Nixinate is a proof of concept that generates a deployment script for each nixosConfiguration you already have in your flake, which can be ran via nix run, thanks to the apps attribute of the flake schema.

Usage

To add and configure nixinate in your own flake, you need to:

1. Add the result of nixinate self to the apps attribute of your flake.
2. Add and configure _module.args.nixinate to the nixosConfigurations you want to deploy

Below is a minimal example:

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-21.11";
    nixinate.url = "github:matthewcroughan/nixinate";
  };

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, nixinate }: {
    apps = nixinate.nixinate.x86_64-linux self;
    nixosConfigurations = {
      myMachine = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
        modules = [
          (import ./my-configuration.nix)
          {
            _module.args.nixinate = {
              host = "itchy.scratchy.com";
              sshUser = "matthew";
              buildOn = "remote"; # valid args are "local" or "remote"
            };
          }
          # ... other configuration ...
        ];
      };
    };
  };
}

Each nixosConfiguration you have configured should have a deployment script in apps.nixinate, visible in nix flake show like this:

$ nix flake show 
git+file:///etc/nixos
├───apps
│   └───nixinate
│       └───myMachine: app
└───nixosConfigurations
    └───myMachine: NixOS configuration

To finally execute the deployment script, use nix run .#apps.nixinate.myMachine

Example Run

[root@myMachine:/etc/nixos]# nix run .#apps.nixinate.myMachine
🚀 Deploying nixosConfigurations.myMachine from /nix/store/279p8aaclmng8kc3mdmrmi6q3n76r1i7-source
👤 SSH User: matthew
🌐 SSH Host: itchy.scratchy.com
🚀 Sending flake to myMachine via nix copy:
(matthew@itchy.scratchy.com) Password: 
🤞 Activating configuration on myMachine via ssh:
(matthew@itchy.scratchy.com) Password: 
[sudo] password for matthew: 
building the system configuration...
activating the configuration...
setting up /etc...
reloading user units for matthew...
setting up tmpfiles
Connection to itchy.scratchy.com closed.