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2.2 KiB
2.2 KiB
NixOS-UTM : Conveniently create UTM VM with NixOS
This repository provides a small wrapper around nixos-anywhere to automate creation of NixOS VMs on MacOS hosts using UTM with the Apple virtualization backend (supporting Rosetta2).
Using the apple virtualsation (insted of qemu) provides access to Rosetta2 and
thus efficient x86_64
support within the VM. Unfortunately, the utmctl
does
not yet provide full functionality (e.g. ip-address
) for the appble backend.
That complicates automatic vm creation and this repo provides utilities to
automate as much as possible for a simple automation setup.
How to create a VM
- create a nix flake with a nixosConfiguration defined
- the ./example folder provides a flake with minimal example config
- use it with
nix flake new -t github:ciderale/nixos-utm my-utm-vm
- adjust ./configuration.nix (atleast set your ssh public key)
- define an environment variable VM_NAME to name the UTM VM
- maybe configure this env var within your project/system setup
- (optionally) define an environment variable UTM_CONFIG to set UTM VM parameters
- fallback to UTM_CONFIG=./utm.config.nix (which is merged using plutil)
- kickoff the installation process with the following command
- assuming your flake is the current directory
.
with configutm
- assuming your flake is the current directory
export VM_NAME=myVM
nix run github:ciderale/nixos-utm#nixosCreate .#utm
Retrieve the VMs IP address
VM_NAME=myVM nix run github:ciderale/nixos-utm#utmConfiguration ip
This command uses the arp cache to lookup the ip address based on the mac address that is found in the VMs configuration folder.
How to rebuild the configuration for an existing configuration
VM_NAME=myVM nix run github:ciderale/nixos-utm#nixosDeploy .#utm
Some aspects that can be improved
- Make VM configuration configurable (currently hardcoded in nixosCreate)
- Improve example configuration for simpler onboarding
- Provide utility to deploy an updated configuration
- Directory sharing between VM and host system.
- it's a UTM system configuration, not a VM configuration
- uses some binary coded "bookmark" format