What are good options for managing a non-Nix server? We have some Raspberry Pi's running Raspbian that I want to keep consistent. I know back in the day Ansible, Salt and Puppet were options... what should I consider these days?
Conversation
One option I'm considering is building an entire Pi image with Nix and just using that.
4
7
Replying to
I have a couple of PCs with a minimal Debian + single user Nix to allow it to run the same code as NixOS PCs. The Debian config doesn't change much (mostly just network). I build on NixOS, then use set one of the NixOS PCs as binary cache.
1
1
All code is then bundled in a single derivation. From the Debian machine, updating is:
nix-store --extra-substituters http://my-nixos -r $STOREPATH --indirect --add-root ~/.my-env
1
1
But this is mostly for build and test tools etc, not daemons, which might be more what you're interested in.
1
Another even dumber way doesn't require Nix on the remote machine:
nix-store --query --requisites "$STOREPATH"
Gives a list that can be rsynced to a remote host
1
I've not attempted building entire images. Seems risky. Getting the other machine to a state where rsync + ssh work using a different Linux distribution seems to be simpler. Then all custom bits can be Nix packages.
Replying to
I agree, that's my preference - let something like Raspbian just get me a working machine. Not a bad idea to ship over a bunch of custom stuff after with single user Nix. Thanks!
1
1
What are the problems with this? E.g. are arm binary caches out of date, etc? If not then I would do this. I did this a couple of years ago and bincaches we're my pain but I thought this changed since?
2
1
Show replies