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<chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" xml:id="sec-installation">
<title>Installing NixOS</title>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-booting">
<title>Booting the system</title>
<para>
NixOS can be installed on BIOS or UEFI systems. The procedure for
a UEFI installation is by and large the same as a BIOS
installation. The differences are mentioned in the steps that
follow.
</para>
<para>
The installation media can be burned to a CD, or now more
commonly, <quote>burned</quote> to a USB drive (see
<xref linkend="sec-booting-from-usb" />).
</para>
<para>
The installation media contains a basic NixOS installation. When
it’s finished booting, it should have detected most of your
hardware.
</para>
<para>
The NixOS manual is available by running
<literal>nixos-help</literal>.
</para>
<para>
You are logged-in automatically as <literal>nixos</literal>. The
<literal>nixos</literal> user account has an empty password so you
can use <literal>sudo</literal> without a password.
</para>
<para>
If you downloaded the graphical ISO image, you can run
<literal>systemctl start display-manager</literal> to start the
desktop environment. If you want to continue on the terminal, you
can use <literal>loadkeys</literal> to switch to your preferred
keyboard layout. (We even provide neo2 via
<literal>loadkeys de neo</literal>!)
</para>
<para>
If the text is too small to be legible, try
<literal>setfont ter-v32n</literal> to increase the font size.
</para>
<para>
To install over a serial port connect with
<literal>115200n8</literal> (e.g.
<literal>picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyUSB0</literal>). When the
bootloader lists boot entries, select the serial console boot
entry.
</para>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-booting-networking">
<title>Networking in the installer</title>
<para>
The boot process should have brought up networking (check
<literal>ip a</literal>). Networking is necessary for the
installer, since it will download lots of stuff (such as source
tarballs or Nixpkgs channel binaries). It’s best if you have a
DHCP server on your network. Otherwise configure networking
manually using <literal>ifconfig</literal>.
</para>
<para>
On the graphical installer, you can configure the network, wifi
included, through NetworkManager. Using the
<literal>nmtui</literal> program, you can do so even in a
non-graphical session. If you prefer to configure the network
manually, disable NetworkManager with
<literal>systemctl stop NetworkManager</literal>.
</para>
<para>
On the minimal installer, NetworkManager is not available, so
configuration must be perfomed manually. To configure the wifi,
first start wpa_supplicant with
<literal>sudo systemctl start wpa_supplicant</literal>, then run
<literal>wpa_cli</literal>. For most home networks, you need to
type in the following commands:
</para>
<programlisting>
&gt; add_network
0
&gt; set_network 0 ssid &quot;myhomenetwork&quot;
OK
&gt; set_network 0 psk &quot;mypassword&quot;
OK
&gt; set_network 0 key_mgmt WPA-PSK
OK
&gt; enable_network 0
OK
</programlisting>
<para>
For enterprise networks, for example
<emphasis>eduroam</emphasis>, instead do:
</para>
<programlisting>
&gt; add_network
0
&gt; set_network 0 ssid &quot;eduroam&quot;
OK
&gt; set_network 0 identity &quot;myname@example.com&quot;
OK
&gt; set_network 0 password &quot;mypassword&quot;
OK
&gt; set_network 0 key_mgmt WPA-EAP
OK
&gt; enable_network 0
OK
</programlisting>
<para>
When successfully connected, you should see a line such as this
one
</para>
<programlisting>
&lt;3&gt;CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to 32:85:ab:ef:24:5c completed [id=0 id_str=]
</programlisting>
<para>
you can now leave <literal>wpa_cli</literal> by typing
<literal>quit</literal>.
</para>
<para>
If you would like to continue the installation from a different
machine you can use activated SSH daemon. You need to copy your
ssh key to either
<literal>/home/nixos/.ssh/authorized_keys</literal> or
<literal>/root/.ssh/authorized_keys</literal> (Tip: For
installers with a modifiable filesystem such as the sd-card
installer image a key can be manually placed by mounting the
image on a different machine). Alternatively you must set a
password for either <literal>root</literal> or
<literal>nixos</literal> with <literal>passwd</literal> to be
able to login.
</para>
</section>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-partitioning">
<title>Partitioning and formatting</title>
<para>
The NixOS installer doesn’t do any partitioning or formatting, so
you need to do that yourself.
</para>
<para>
The NixOS installer ships with multiple partitioning tools. The
examples below use <literal>parted</literal>, but also provides
<literal>fdisk</literal>, <literal>gdisk</literal>,
<literal>cfdisk</literal>, and <literal>cgdisk</literal>.
</para>
<para>
The recommended partition scheme differs depending if the computer
uses <emphasis>Legacy Boot</emphasis> or
<emphasis>UEFI</emphasis>.
</para>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-partitioning-UEFI">
<title>UEFI (GPT)</title>
<para>
Here's an example partition scheme for UEFI, using
<literal>/dev/sda</literal> as the device.
</para>
<note>
<para>
You can safely ignore <literal>parted</literal>'s
informational message about needing to update /etc/fstab.
</para>
</note>
<orderedlist numeration="arabic">
<listitem>
<para>
Create a <emphasis>GPT</emphasis> partition table.
</para>
<programlisting>
# parted /dev/sda -- mklabel gpt
</programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Add the <emphasis>root</emphasis> partition. This will fill
the disk except for the end part, where the swap will live,
and the space left in front (512MiB) which will be used by
the boot partition.
</para>
<programlisting>
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 512MiB -8GiB
</programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Next, add a <emphasis>swap</emphasis> partition. The size
required will vary according to needs, here a 8GiB one is
created.
</para>
<programlisting>
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap -8GiB 100%
</programlisting>
<note>
<para>
The swap partition size rules are no different than for
other Linux distributions.
</para>
</note>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Finally, the <emphasis>boot</emphasis> partition. NixOS by
default uses the ESP (EFI system partition) as its
<emphasis>/boot</emphasis> partition. It uses the initially
reserved 512MiB at the start of the disk.
</para>
<programlisting>
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart ESP fat32 1MiB 512MiB
# parted /dev/sda -- set 3 esp on
</programlisting>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<para>
Once complete, you can follow with
<xref linkend="sec-installation-partitioning-formatting" />.
</para>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-partitioning-MBR">
<title>Legacy Boot (MBR)</title>
<para>
Here's an example partition scheme for Legacy Boot, using
<literal>/dev/sda</literal> as the device.
</para>
<note>
<para>
You can safely ignore <literal>parted</literal>'s
informational message about needing to update /etc/fstab.
</para>
</note>
<orderedlist numeration="arabic">
<listitem>
<para>
Create a <emphasis>MBR</emphasis> partition table.
</para>
<programlisting>
# parted /dev/sda -- mklabel msdos
</programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Add the <emphasis>root</emphasis> partition. This will fill
the the disk except for the end part, where the swap will
live.
</para>
<programlisting>
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 1MiB -8GiB
</programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Finally, add a <emphasis>swap</emphasis> partition. The size
required will vary according to needs, here a 8GiB one is
created.
</para>
<programlisting>
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap -8GiB 100%
</programlisting>
<note>
<para>
The swap partition size rules are no different than for
other Linux distributions.
</para>
</note>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<para>
Once complete, you can follow with
<xref linkend="sec-installation-partitioning-formatting" />.
</para>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-partitioning-formatting">
<title>Formatting</title>
<para>
Use the following commands:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
For initialising Ext4 partitions:
<literal>mkfs.ext4</literal>. It is recommended that you
assign a unique symbolic label to the file system using the
option <literal>-L label</literal>, since this makes the
file system configuration independent from device changes.
For example:
</para>
<programlisting>
# mkfs.ext4 -L nixos /dev/sda1
</programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
For creating swap partitions: <literal>mkswap</literal>.
Again it’s recommended to assign a label to the swap
partition: <literal>-L label</literal>. For example:
</para>
<programlisting>
# mkswap -L swap /dev/sda2
</programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis role="strong">UEFI systems</emphasis>
</para>
<para>
For creating boot partitions: <literal>mkfs.fat</literal>.
Again it’s recommended to assign a label to the boot
partition: <literal>-n label</literal>. For example:
</para>
<programlisting>
# mkfs.fat -F 32 -n boot /dev/sda3
</programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
For creating LVM volumes, the LVM commands, e.g.,
<literal>pvcreate</literal>, <literal>vgcreate</literal>,
and <literal>lvcreate</literal>.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
For creating software RAID devices, use
<literal>mdadm</literal>.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-installing">
<title>Installing</title>
<orderedlist numeration="arabic">
<listitem>
<para>
Mount the target file system on which NixOS should be
installed on <literal>/mnt</literal>, e.g.
</para>
<programlisting>
# mount /dev/disk/by-label/nixos /mnt
</programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
<emphasis role="strong">UEFI systems</emphasis>
</para>
<para>
Mount the boot file system on <literal>/mnt/boot</literal>,
e.g.
</para>
<programlisting>
# mkdir -p /mnt/boot
# mount /dev/disk/by-label/boot /mnt/boot
</programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
If your machine has a limited amount of memory, you may want
to activate swap devices now
(<literal>swapon device</literal>). The installer (or rather,
the build actions that it may spawn) may need quite a bit of
RAM, depending on your configuration.
</para>
<programlisting>
# swapon /dev/sda2
</programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
You now need to create a file
<literal>/mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix</literal> that
specifies the intended configuration of the system. This is
because NixOS has a <emphasis>declarative</emphasis>
configuration model: you create or edit a description of the
desired configuration of your system, and then NixOS takes
care of making it happen. The syntax of the NixOS
configuration file is described in
<xref linkend="sec-configuration-syntax" />, while a list of
available configuration options appears in
<xref linkend="ch-options" />. A minimal example is shown in
<link linkend="ex-config">Example: NixOS Configuration</link>.
</para>
<para>
The command <literal>nixos-generate-config</literal> can
generate an initial configuration file for you:
</para>
<programlisting>
# nixos-generate-config --root /mnt
</programlisting>
<para>
You should then edit
<literal>/mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix</literal> to suit
your needs:
</para>
<programlisting>
# nano /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
</programlisting>
<para>
If you’re using the graphical ISO image, other editors may be
available (such as <literal>vim</literal>). If you have
network access, you can also install other editors – for
instance, you can install Emacs by running
<literal>nix-env -f '&lt;nixpkgs&gt;' -iA emacs</literal>.
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>
BIOS systems
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
You <emphasis>must</emphasis> set the option
<xref linkend="opt-boot.loader.grub.device" /> to
specify on which disk the GRUB boot loader is to be
installed. Without it, NixOS cannot boot.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
UEFI systems
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
You <emphasis>must</emphasis> set the option
<xref linkend="opt-boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable" />
to <literal>true</literal>.
<literal>nixos-generate-config</literal> should do this
automatically for new configurations when booted in UEFI
mode.
</para>
<para>
You may want to look at the options starting with
<link linkend="opt-boot.loader.efi.canTouchEfiVariables"><literal>boot.loader.efi</literal></link>
and
<link linkend="opt-boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable"><literal>boot.loader.systemd-boot</literal></link>
as well.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>
If there are other operating systems running on the machine
before installing NixOS, the
<xref linkend="opt-boot.loader.grub.useOSProber" /> option can
be set to <literal>true</literal> to automatically add them to
the grub menu.
</para>
<para>
If you need to configure networking for your machine the
configuration options are described in
<xref linkend="sec-networking" />. In particular, while wifi
is supported on the installation image, it is not enabled by
default in the configuration generated by
<literal>nixos-generate-config</literal>.
</para>
<para>
Another critical option is <literal>fileSystems</literal>,
specifying the file systems that need to be mounted by NixOS.
However, you typically don’t need to set it yourself, because
<literal>nixos-generate-config</literal> sets it automatically
in
<literal>/mnt/etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix</literal>
from your currently mounted file systems. (The configuration
file <literal>hardware-configuration.nix</literal> is included
from <literal>configuration.nix</literal> and will be
overwritten by future invocations of
<literal>nixos-generate-config</literal>; thus, you generally
should not modify it.) Additionally, you may want to look at
<link xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware">Hardware
configuration for known-hardware</link> at this point or after
installation.
</para>
<note>
<para>
Depending on your hardware configuration or type of file
system, you may need to set the option
<literal>boot.initrd.kernelModules</literal> to include the
kernel modules that are necessary for mounting the root file
system, otherwise the installed system will not be able to
boot. (If this happens, boot from the installation media
again, mount the target file system on
<literal>/mnt</literal>, fix
<literal>/mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix</literal> and
rerun <literal>nixos-install</literal>.) In most cases,
<literal>nixos-generate-config</literal> will figure out the
required modules.
</para>
</note>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Do the installation:
</para>
<programlisting>
# nixos-install
</programlisting>
<para>
This will install your system based on the configuration you
provided. If anything fails due to a configuration problem or
any other issue (such as a network outage while downloading
binaries from the NixOS binary cache), you can re-run
<literal>nixos-install</literal> after fixing your
<literal>configuration.nix</literal>.
</para>
<para>
As the last step, <literal>nixos-install</literal> will ask
you to set the password for the <literal>root</literal> user,
e.g.
</para>
<programlisting>
setting root password...
New password: ***
Retype new password: ***
</programlisting>
<note>
<para>
For unattended installations, it is possible to use
<literal>nixos-install --no-root-passwd</literal> in order
to disable the password prompt entirely.
</para>
</note>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
If everything went well:
</para>
<programlisting>
# reboot
</programlisting>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
You should now be able to boot into the installed NixOS. The
GRUB boot menu shows a list of <emphasis>available
configurations</emphasis> (initially just one). Every time you
change the NixOS configuration (see
<link linkend="sec-changing-config">Changing
Configuration</link>), a new item is added to the menu. This
allows you to easily roll back to a previous configuration if
something goes wrong.
</para>
<para>
You should log in and change the <literal>root</literal>
password with <literal>passwd</literal>.
</para>
<para>
You’ll probably want to create some user accounts as well,
which can be done with <literal>useradd</literal>:
</para>
<programlisting>
$ useradd -c 'Eelco Dolstra' -m eelco
$ passwd eelco
</programlisting>
<para>
You may also want to install some software. This will be
covered in <xref linkend="sec-package-management" />.
</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-summary">
<title>Installation summary</title>
<para>
To summarise, <link linkend="ex-install-sequence">Example:
Commands for Installing NixOS on
<literal>/dev/sda</literal></link> shows a typical sequence of
commands for installing NixOS on an empty hard drive (here
<literal>/dev/sda</literal>). <link linkend="ex-config">Example:
NixOS Configuration</link> shows a corresponding configuration Nix
expression.
</para>
<anchor xml:id="ex-partition-scheme-MBR" />
<para>
<emphasis role="strong">Example: Example partition schemes for
NixOS on <literal>/dev/sda</literal> (MBR)</emphasis>
</para>
<programlisting>
# parted /dev/sda -- mklabel msdos
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 1MiB -8GiB
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap -8GiB 100%
</programlisting>
<anchor xml:id="ex-partition-scheme-UEFI" />
<para>
<emphasis role="strong">Example: Example partition schemes for
NixOS on <literal>/dev/sda</literal> (UEFI)</emphasis>
</para>
<programlisting>
# parted /dev/sda -- mklabel gpt
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 512MiB -8GiB
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap -8GiB 100%
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart ESP fat32 1MiB 512MiB
# parted /dev/sda -- set 3 esp on
</programlisting>
<anchor xml:id="ex-install-sequence" />
<para>
<emphasis role="strong">Example: Commands for Installing NixOS on
<literal>/dev/sda</literal></emphasis>
</para>
<para>
With a partitioned disk.
</para>
<programlisting>
# mkfs.ext4 -L nixos /dev/sda1
# mkswap -L swap /dev/sda2
# swapon /dev/sda2
# mkfs.fat -F 32 -n boot /dev/sda3 # (for UEFI systems only)
# mount /dev/disk/by-label/nixos /mnt
# mkdir -p /mnt/boot # (for UEFI systems only)
# mount /dev/disk/by-label/boot /mnt/boot # (for UEFI systems only)
# nixos-generate-config --root /mnt
# nano /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
# nixos-install
# reboot
</programlisting>
<anchor xml:id="ex-config" />
<para>
<emphasis role="strong">Example: NixOS Configuration</emphasis>
</para>
<programlisting>
{ config, pkgs, ... }: {
imports = [
# Include the results of the hardware scan.
./hardware-configuration.nix
];
boot.loader.grub.device = &quot;/dev/sda&quot;; # (for BIOS systems only)
boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable = true; # (for UEFI systems only)
# Note: setting fileSystems is generally not
# necessary, since nixos-generate-config figures them out
# automatically in hardware-configuration.nix.
#fileSystems.&quot;/&quot;.device = &quot;/dev/disk/by-label/nixos&quot;;
# Enable the OpenSSH server.
services.sshd.enable = true;
}
</programlisting>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-additional-notes">
<title>Additional installation notes</title>
<xi:include href="installing-usb.section.xml" />
<xi:include href="installing-pxe.section.xml" />
<xi:include href="installing-virtualbox-guest.section.xml" />
<xi:include href="installing-from-other-distro.section.xml" />
<xi:include href="installing-behind-a-proxy.section.xml" />
</section>
</chapter>

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</para>
</partintro>
<xi:include href="../from_md/installation/obtaining.chapter.xml" />
<xi:include href="installing.xml" />
<xi:include href="../from_md/installation/installing.chapter.xml" />
<xi:include href="../from_md/installation/changing-config.chapter.xml" />
<xi:include href="../from_md/installation/upgrading.chapter.xml" />
</part>

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# Installing NixOS {#sec-installation}
## Booting the system {#sec-installation-booting}
NixOS can be installed on BIOS or UEFI systems. The procedure for a UEFI
installation is by and large the same as a BIOS installation. The
differences are mentioned in the steps that follow.
The installation media can be burned to a CD, or now more commonly,
"burned" to a USB drive (see [](#sec-booting-from-usb)).
The installation media contains a basic NixOS installation. When it's
finished booting, it should have detected most of your hardware.
The NixOS manual is available by running `nixos-help`.
You are logged-in automatically as `nixos`. The `nixos` user account has
an empty password so you can use `sudo` without a password.
If you downloaded the graphical ISO image, you can run `systemctl
start display-manager` to start the desktop environment. If you want
to continue on the terminal, you can use `loadkeys` to switch to your
preferred keyboard layout. (We even provide neo2 via `loadkeys de
neo`!)
If the text is too small to be legible, try `setfont ter-v32n` to
increase the font size.
To install over a serial port connect with `115200n8` (e.g.
`picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyUSB0`). When the bootloader lists boot
entries, select the serial console boot entry.
### Networking in the installer {#sec-installation-booting-networking}
The boot process should have brought up networking (check `ip
a`). Networking is necessary for the installer, since it will
download lots of stuff (such as source tarballs or Nixpkgs channel
binaries). It's best if you have a DHCP server on your network.
Otherwise configure networking manually using `ifconfig`.
On the graphical installer, you can configure the network, wifi
included, through NetworkManager. Using the `nmtui` program, you can do
so even in a non-graphical session. If you prefer to configure the
network manually, disable NetworkManager with
`systemctl stop NetworkManager`.
On the minimal installer, NetworkManager is not available, so
configuration must be perfomed manually. To configure the wifi, first
start wpa_supplicant with `sudo systemctl start wpa_supplicant`, then
run `wpa_cli`. For most home networks, you need to type in the following
commands:
```plain
> add_network
0
> set_network 0 ssid "myhomenetwork"
OK
> set_network 0 psk "mypassword"
OK
> set_network 0 key_mgmt WPA-PSK
OK
> enable_network 0
OK
```
For enterprise networks, for example *eduroam*, instead do:
```plain
> add_network
0
> set_network 0 ssid "eduroam"
OK
> set_network 0 identity "myname@example.com"
OK
> set_network 0 password "mypassword"
OK
> set_network 0 key_mgmt WPA-EAP
OK
> enable_network 0
OK
```
When successfully connected, you should see a line such as this one
```plain
<3>CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to 32:85:ab:ef:24:5c completed [id=0 id_str=]
```
you can now leave `wpa_cli` by typing `quit`.
If you would like to continue the installation from a different machine
you can use activated SSH daemon. You need to copy your ssh key to
either `/home/nixos/.ssh/authorized_keys` or
`/root/.ssh/authorized_keys` (Tip: For installers with a modifiable
filesystem such as the sd-card installer image a key can be manually
placed by mounting the image on a different machine). Alternatively you
must set a password for either `root` or `nixos` with `passwd` to be
able to login.
## Partitioning and formatting {#sec-installation-partitioning}
The NixOS installer doesn't do any partitioning or formatting, so you
need to do that yourself.
The NixOS installer ships with multiple partitioning tools. The examples
below use `parted`, but also provides `fdisk`, `gdisk`, `cfdisk`, and
`cgdisk`.
The recommended partition scheme differs depending if the computer uses
*Legacy Boot* or *UEFI*.
### UEFI (GPT) {#sec-installation-partitioning-UEFI}
Here\'s an example partition scheme for UEFI, using `/dev/sda` as the
device.
::: {.note}
You can safely ignore `parted`\'s informational message about needing to
update /etc/fstab.
:::
1. Create a *GPT* partition table.
```ShellSession
# parted /dev/sda -- mklabel gpt
```
2. Add the *root* partition. This will fill the disk except for the end
part, where the swap will live, and the space left in front (512MiB)
which will be used by the boot partition.
```ShellSession
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 512MiB -8GiB
```
3. Next, add a *swap* partition. The size required will vary according
to needs, here a 8GiB one is created.
```ShellSession
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap -8GiB 100%
```
::: {.note}
The swap partition size rules are no different than for other Linux
distributions.
:::
4. Finally, the *boot* partition. NixOS by default uses the ESP (EFI
system partition) as its */boot* partition. It uses the initially
reserved 512MiB at the start of the disk.
```ShellSession
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart ESP fat32 1MiB 512MiB
# parted /dev/sda -- set 3 esp on
```
Once complete, you can follow with
[](#sec-installation-partitioning-formatting).
### Legacy Boot (MBR) {#sec-installation-partitioning-MBR}
Here\'s an example partition scheme for Legacy Boot, using `/dev/sda` as
the device.
::: {.note}
You can safely ignore `parted`\'s informational message about needing to
update /etc/fstab.
:::
1. Create a *MBR* partition table.
```ShellSession
# parted /dev/sda -- mklabel msdos
```
2. Add the *root* partition. This will fill the the disk except for the
end part, where the swap will live.
```ShellSession
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 1MiB -8GiB
```
3. Finally, add a *swap* partition. The size required will vary
according to needs, here a 8GiB one is created.
```ShellSession
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap -8GiB 100%
```
::: {.note}
The swap partition size rules are no different than for other Linux
distributions.
:::
Once complete, you can follow with
[](#sec-installation-partitioning-formatting).
### Formatting {#sec-installation-partitioning-formatting}
Use the following commands:
- For initialising Ext4 partitions: `mkfs.ext4`. It is recommended
that you assign a unique symbolic label to the file system using the
option `-L label`, since this makes the file system configuration
independent from device changes. For example:
```ShellSession
# mkfs.ext4 -L nixos /dev/sda1
```
- For creating swap partitions: `mkswap`. Again it's recommended to
assign a label to the swap partition: `-L label`. For example:
```ShellSession
# mkswap -L swap /dev/sda2
```
- **UEFI systems**
For creating boot partitions: `mkfs.fat`. Again it's recommended
to assign a label to the boot partition: `-n label`. For
example:
```ShellSession
# mkfs.fat -F 32 -n boot /dev/sda3
```
- For creating LVM volumes, the LVM commands, e.g., `pvcreate`,
`vgcreate`, and `lvcreate`.
- For creating software RAID devices, use `mdadm`.
## Installing {#sec-installation-installing}
1. Mount the target file system on which NixOS should be installed on
`/mnt`, e.g.
```ShellSession
# mount /dev/disk/by-label/nixos /mnt
```
2. **UEFI systems**
Mount the boot file system on `/mnt/boot`, e.g.
```ShellSession
# mkdir -p /mnt/boot
# mount /dev/disk/by-label/boot /mnt/boot
```
3. If your machine has a limited amount of memory, you may want to
activate swap devices now (`swapon device`).
The installer (or rather, the build actions that it
may spawn) may need quite a bit of RAM, depending on your
configuration.
```ShellSession
# swapon /dev/sda2
```
4. You now need to create a file `/mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix`
that specifies the intended configuration of the system. This is
because NixOS has a *declarative* configuration model: you create or
edit a description of the desired configuration of your system, and
then NixOS takes care of making it happen. The syntax of the NixOS
configuration file is described in [](#sec-configuration-syntax),
while a list of available configuration options appears in
[](#ch-options). A minimal example is shown in
[Example: NixOS Configuration](#ex-config).
The command `nixos-generate-config` can generate an initial
configuration file for you:
```ShellSession
# nixos-generate-config --root /mnt
```
You should then edit `/mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix` to suit your
needs:
```ShellSession
# nano /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
```
If you're using the graphical ISO image, other editors may be
available (such as `vim`). If you have network access, you can also
install other editors -- for instance, you can install Emacs by
running `nix-env -f '<nixpkgs>' -iA emacs`.
BIOS systems
: You *must* set the option [](#opt-boot.loader.grub.device) to
specify on which disk the GRUB boot loader is to be installed.
Without it, NixOS cannot boot.
UEFI systems
: You *must* set the option [](#opt-boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable)
to `true`. `nixos-generate-config` should do this automatically
for new configurations when booted in UEFI mode.
You may want to look at the options starting with
[`boot.loader.efi`](#opt-boot.loader.efi.canTouchEfiVariables) and
[`boot.loader.systemd-boot`](#opt-boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable)
as well.
If there are other operating systems running on the machine before
installing NixOS, the [](#opt-boot.loader.grub.useOSProber)
option can be set to `true` to automatically add them to the grub
menu.
If you need to configure networking for your machine the
configuration options are described in [](#sec-networking). In
particular, while wifi is supported on the installation image, it is
not enabled by default in the configuration generated by
`nixos-generate-config`.
Another critical option is `fileSystems`, specifying the file
systems that need to be mounted by NixOS. However, you typically
don't need to set it yourself, because `nixos-generate-config` sets
it automatically in `/mnt/etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix` from
your currently mounted file systems. (The configuration file
`hardware-configuration.nix` is included from `configuration.nix`
and will be overwritten by future invocations of
`nixos-generate-config`; thus, you generally should not modify it.)
Additionally, you may want to look at [Hardware configuration for
known-hardware](https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware) at this
point or after installation.
::: {.note}
Depending on your hardware configuration or type of file system, you
may need to set the option `boot.initrd.kernelModules` to include
the kernel modules that are necessary for mounting the root file
system, otherwise the installed system will not be able to boot. (If
this happens, boot from the installation media again, mount the
target file system on `/mnt`, fix `/mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix`
and rerun `nixos-install`.) In most cases, `nixos-generate-config`
will figure out the required modules.
:::
5. Do the installation:
```ShellSession
# nixos-install
```
This will install your system based on the configuration you
provided. If anything fails due to a configuration problem or any
other issue (such as a network outage while downloading binaries
from the NixOS binary cache), you can re-run `nixos-install` after
fixing your `configuration.nix`.
As the last step, `nixos-install` will ask you to set the password
for the `root` user, e.g.
```plain
setting root password...
New password: ***
Retype new password: ***
```
::: {.note}
For unattended installations, it is possible to use
`nixos-install --no-root-passwd` in order to disable the password
prompt entirely.
:::
6. If everything went well:
```ShellSession
# reboot
```
7. You should now be able to boot into the installed NixOS. The GRUB
boot menu shows a list of *available configurations* (initially just
one). Every time you change the NixOS configuration (see [Changing
Configuration](#sec-changing-config)), a new item is added to the
menu. This allows you to easily roll back to a previous
configuration if something goes wrong.
You should log in and change the `root` password with `passwd`.
You'll probably want to create some user accounts as well, which can
be done with `useradd`:
```ShellSession
$ useradd -c 'Eelco Dolstra' -m eelco
$ passwd eelco
```
You may also want to install some software. This will be covered in
[](#sec-package-management).
## Installation summary {#sec-installation-summary}
To summarise, [Example: Commands for Installing NixOS on `/dev/sda`](#ex-install-sequence)
shows a typical sequence of commands for installing NixOS on an empty hard
drive (here `/dev/sda`). [Example: NixOS Configuration](#ex-config) shows a
corresponding configuration Nix expression.
::: {#ex-partition-scheme-MBR .example}
::: {.title}
**Example: Example partition schemes for NixOS on `/dev/sda` (MBR)**
:::
```ShellSession
# parted /dev/sda -- mklabel msdos
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 1MiB -8GiB
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap -8GiB 100%
```
:::
::: {#ex-partition-scheme-UEFI .example}
::: {.title}
**Example: Example partition schemes for NixOS on `/dev/sda` (UEFI)**
:::
```ShellSession
# parted /dev/sda -- mklabel gpt
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 512MiB -8GiB
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap -8GiB 100%
# parted /dev/sda -- mkpart ESP fat32 1MiB 512MiB
# parted /dev/sda -- set 3 esp on
```
:::
::: {#ex-install-sequence .example}
::: {.title}
**Example: Commands for Installing NixOS on `/dev/sda`**
:::
With a partitioned disk.
```ShellSession
# mkfs.ext4 -L nixos /dev/sda1
# mkswap -L swap /dev/sda2
# swapon /dev/sda2
# mkfs.fat -F 32 -n boot /dev/sda3 # (for UEFI systems only)
# mount /dev/disk/by-label/nixos /mnt
# mkdir -p /mnt/boot # (for UEFI systems only)
# mount /dev/disk/by-label/boot /mnt/boot # (for UEFI systems only)
# nixos-generate-config --root /mnt
# nano /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
# nixos-install
# reboot
```
:::
::: {#ex-config .example}
::: {.title}
**Example: NixOS Configuration**
:::
```ShellSession
{ config, pkgs, ... }: {
imports = [
# Include the results of the hardware scan.
./hardware-configuration.nix
];
boot.loader.grub.device = "/dev/sda"; # (for BIOS systems only)
boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable = true; # (for UEFI systems only)
# Note: setting fileSystems is generally not
# necessary, since nixos-generate-config figures them out
# automatically in hardware-configuration.nix.
#fileSystems."/".device = "/dev/disk/by-label/nixos";
# Enable the OpenSSH server.
services.sshd.enable = true;
}
```
:::
## Additional installation notes {#sec-installation-additional-notes}
```{=docbook}
<xi:include href="installing-usb.section.xml" />
<xi:include href="installing-pxe.section.xml" />
<xi:include href="installing-virtualbox-guest.section.xml" />
<xi:include href="installing-from-other-distro.section.xml" />
<xi:include href="installing-behind-a-proxy.section.xml" />
```

616
nixos/doc/manual/installation/installing.xml
View File

@ -1,616 +0,0 @@
<chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
version="5.0"
xml:id="sec-installation">
<title>Installing NixOS</title>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-booting">
<title>Booting the system</title>
<para>
NixOS can be installed on BIOS or UEFI systems. The procedure for a UEFI
installation is by and large the same as a BIOS installation. The
differences are mentioned in the steps that follow.
</para>
<para>
The installation media can be burned to a CD, or now more commonly, "burned"
to a USB drive (see <xref linkend="sec-booting-from-usb"/>).
</para>
<para>
The installation media contains a basic NixOS installation. When it’s
finished booting, it should have detected most of your hardware.
</para>
<para>
The NixOS manual is available by running <command>nixos-help</command>.
</para>
<para>
You are logged-in automatically as <literal>nixos</literal>.
The <literal>nixos</literal> user account has an empty password so you
can use <command>sudo</command> without a password.
</para>
<para>
If you downloaded the graphical ISO image, you can run <command>systemctl
start display-manager</command> to start the desktop environment. If you want to continue on the
terminal, you can use <command>loadkeys</command> to switch to your
preferred keyboard layout. (We even provide neo2 via <command>loadkeys de
neo</command>!)
</para>
<para>
If the text is too small to be legible, try <command>setfont ter-v32n</command>
to increase the font size.
</para>
<para>
To install over a serial port connect with <literal>115200n8</literal>
(e.g. <command>picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyUSB0</command>). When the
bootloader lists boot entries, select the serial console boot entry.
</para>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-booting-networking">
<title>Networking in the installer</title>
<para>
The boot process should have brought up networking (check <command>ip
a</command>). Networking is necessary for the installer, since it will
download lots of stuff (such as source tarballs or Nixpkgs channel
binaries). It’s best if you have a DHCP server on your network. Otherwise
configure networking manually using <command>ifconfig</command>.
</para>
<para>
On the graphical installer, you can configure the network, wifi included,
through NetworkManager. Using the <command>nmtui</command> program, you
can do so even in a non-graphical session. If you prefer to configure the
network manually, disable NetworkManager with
<command>systemctl stop NetworkManager</command>.
</para>
<para>
On the minimal installer, NetworkManager is not available, so configuration
must be perfomed manually. To configure the wifi, first start wpa_supplicant
with <command>sudo systemctl start wpa_supplicant</command>, then run
<command>wpa_cli</command>. For most home networks, you need to type
in the following commands:
<programlisting>
<prompt>&gt; </prompt>add_network
0
<prompt>&gt; </prompt>set_network 0 ssid "myhomenetwork"
OK
<prompt>&gt; </prompt>set_network 0 psk "mypassword"
OK
<prompt>&gt; </prompt>set_network 0 key_mgmt WPA-PSK
OK
<prompt>&gt; </prompt>enable_network 0
OK
</programlisting>
For enterprise networks, for example <emphasis>eduroam</emphasis>, instead do:
<programlisting>
<prompt>&gt; </prompt>add_network
0
<prompt>&gt; </prompt>set_network 0 ssid "eduroam"
OK
<prompt>&gt; </prompt>set_network 0 identity "myname@example.com"
OK
<prompt>&gt; </prompt>set_network 0 password "mypassword"
OK
<prompt>&gt; </prompt>set_network 0 key_mgmt WPA-EAP
OK
<prompt>&gt; </prompt>enable_network 0
OK
</programlisting>
When successfully connected, you should see a line such as this one
<programlisting>
&lt;3&gt;CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to 32:85:ab:ef:24:5c completed [id=0 id_str=]
</programlisting>
you can now leave <command>wpa_cli</command> by typing <command>quit</command>.
</para>
<para>
If you would like to continue the installation from a different machine you
can use activated SSH daemon. You need to copy your ssh key to either
<literal>/home/nixos/.ssh/authorized_keys</literal> or
<literal>/root/.ssh/authorized_keys</literal> (Tip: For installers with a
modifiable filesystem such as the sd-card installer image a key can be manually
placed by mounting the image on a different machine). Alternatively you must set
a password for either <literal>root</literal> or <literal>nixos</literal> with
<command>passwd</command> to be able to login.
</para>
</section>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-partitioning">
<title>Partitioning and formatting</title>
<para>
The NixOS installer doesn’t do any partitioning or formatting, so you need
to do that yourself.
</para>
<para>
The NixOS installer ships with multiple partitioning tools. The examples
below use <command>parted</command>, but also provides
<command>fdisk</command>, <command>gdisk</command>,
<command>cfdisk</command>, and <command>cgdisk</command>.
</para>
<para>
The recommended partition scheme differs depending if the computer uses
<emphasis>Legacy Boot</emphasis> or <emphasis>UEFI</emphasis>.
</para>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-partitioning-UEFI">
<title>UEFI (GPT)</title>
<para>
Here's an example partition scheme for UEFI, using
<filename>/dev/sda</filename> as the device.
<note>
<para>
You can safely ignore <command>parted</command>'s informational message
about needing to update /etc/fstab.
</para>
</note>
</para>
<para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
Create a <emphasis>GPT</emphasis> partition table.
<screen language="commands"><prompt># </prompt>parted /dev/sda -- mklabel gpt</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Add the <emphasis>root</emphasis> partition. This will fill the disk
except for the end part, where the swap will live, and the space left in
front (512MiB) which will be used by the boot partition.
<screen language="commands"><prompt># </prompt>parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 512MiB -8GiB</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Next, add a <emphasis>swap</emphasis> partition. The size required will
vary according to needs, here a 8GiB one is created.
<screen language="commands"><prompt># </prompt>parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap -8GiB 100%</screen>
<note>
<para>
The swap partition size rules are no different than for other Linux
distributions.
</para>
</note>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Finally, the <emphasis>boot</emphasis> partition. NixOS by default uses
the ESP (EFI system partition) as its <emphasis>/boot</emphasis>
partition. It uses the initially reserved 512MiB at the start of the
disk.
<screen language="commands"><prompt># </prompt>parted /dev/sda -- mkpart ESP fat32 1MiB 512MiB
<prompt># </prompt>parted /dev/sda -- set 3 esp on</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</para>
<para>
Once complete, you can follow with
<xref linkend="sec-installation-partitioning-formatting"/>.
</para>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-partitioning-MBR">
<title>Legacy Boot (MBR)</title>
<para>
Here's an example partition scheme for Legacy Boot, using
<filename>/dev/sda</filename> as the device.
<note>
<para>
You can safely ignore <command>parted</command>'s informational message
about needing to update /etc/fstab.
</para>
</note>
</para>
<para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
Create a <emphasis>MBR</emphasis> partition table.
<screen language="commands"><prompt># </prompt>parted /dev/sda -- mklabel msdos</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Add the <emphasis>root</emphasis> partition. This will fill the the disk
except for the end part, where the swap will live.
<screen language="commands"><prompt># </prompt>parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 1MiB -8GiB</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Finally, add a <emphasis>swap</emphasis> partition. The size required
will vary according to needs, here a 8GiB one is created.
<screen language="commands"><prompt># </prompt>parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap -8GiB 100%</screen>
<note>
<para>
The swap partition size rules are no different than for other Linux
distributions.
</para>
</note>
</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</para>
<para>
Once complete, you can follow with
<xref linkend="sec-installation-partitioning-formatting"/>.
</para>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-partitioning-formatting">
<title>Formatting</title>
<para>
Use the following commands:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
For initialising Ext4 partitions: <command>mkfs.ext4</command>. It is
recommended that you assign a unique symbolic label to the file system
using the option <option>-L <replaceable>label</replaceable></option>,
since this makes the file system configuration independent from device
changes. For example:
<screen>
<prompt># </prompt>mkfs.ext4 -L nixos /dev/sda1</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
For creating swap partitions: <command>mkswap</command>. Again it’s
recommended to assign a label to the swap partition: <option>-L
<replaceable>label</replaceable></option>. For example:
<screen>
<prompt># </prompt>mkswap -L swap /dev/sda2</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>
UEFI systems
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
For creating boot partitions: <command>mkfs.fat</command>. Again
it’s recommended to assign a label to the boot partition:
<option>-n <replaceable>label</replaceable></option>. For example:
<screen>
<prompt># </prompt>mkfs.fat -F 32 -n boot /dev/sda3</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
For creating LVM volumes, the LVM commands, e.g.,
<command>pvcreate</command>, <command>vgcreate</command>, and
<command>lvcreate</command>.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
For creating software RAID devices, use <command>mdadm</command>.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
</section>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-installing">
<title>Installing</title>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
Mount the target file system on which NixOS should be installed on
<filename>/mnt</filename>, e.g.
<screen>
<prompt># </prompt>mount /dev/disk/by-label/nixos /mnt
</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>
UEFI systems
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
Mount the boot file system on <filename>/mnt/boot</filename>, e.g.
<screen>
<prompt># </prompt>mkdir -p /mnt/boot
<prompt># </prompt>mount /dev/disk/by-label/boot /mnt/boot
</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
If your machine has a limited amount of memory, you may want to activate
swap devices now (<command>swapon
<replaceable>device</replaceable></command>). The installer (or rather,
the build actions that it may spawn) may need quite a bit of RAM,
depending on your configuration.
<screen>
<prompt># </prompt>swapon /dev/sda2</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
You now need to create a file
<filename>/mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix</filename> that specifies the
intended configuration of the system. This is because NixOS has a
<emphasis>declarative</emphasis> configuration model: you create or edit a
description of the desired configuration of your system, and then NixOS
takes care of making it happen. The syntax of the NixOS configuration file
is described in <xref linkend="sec-configuration-syntax"/>, while a list
of available configuration options appears in
<xref
linkend="ch-options"/>. A minimal example is shown in
<xref
linkend="ex-config"/>.
</para>
<para>
The command <command>nixos-generate-config</command> can generate an
initial configuration file for you:
<screen>
<prompt># </prompt>nixos-generate-config --root /mnt</screen>
You should then edit <filename>/mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix</filename>
to suit your needs:
<screen>
<prompt># </prompt>nano /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
</screen>
If you’re using the graphical ISO image, other editors may be available
(such as <command>vim</command>). If you have network access, you can also
install other editors — for instance, you can install Emacs by running
<literal>nix-env -f '&lt;nixpkgs&gt;' -iA emacs</literal>.
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>
BIOS systems
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
You <emphasis>must</emphasis> set the option
<xref linkend="opt-boot.loader.grub.device"/> to specify on which disk
the GRUB boot loader is to be installed. Without it, NixOS cannot boot.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
UEFI systems
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
You <emphasis>must</emphasis> set the option
<xref linkend="opt-boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable"/> to
<literal>true</literal>. <command>nixos-generate-config</command>
should do this automatically for new configurations when booted in UEFI
mode.
</para>
<para>
You may want to look at the options starting with
<option><link linkend="opt-boot.loader.efi.canTouchEfiVariables">boot.loader.efi</link></option>
and
<option><link linkend="opt-boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable">boot.loader.systemd-boot</link></option>
as well.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>
If there are other operating systems running on the machine before
installing NixOS, the <xref linkend="opt-boot.loader.grub.useOSProber"/>
option can be set to <literal>true</literal> to automatically add them to
the grub menu.
</para>
<para>
If you need to configure networking for your machine the configuration
options are described in <xref linkend="sec-networking"/>. In particular,
while wifi is supported on the installation image, it is not enabled by
default in the configuration generated by
<command>nixos-generate-config</command>.
</para>
<para>
Another critical option is <option>fileSystems</option>, specifying the
file systems that need to be mounted by NixOS. However, you typically
don’t need to set it yourself, because
<command>nixos-generate-config</command> sets it automatically in
<filename>/mnt/etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix</filename> from your
currently mounted file systems. (The configuration file
<filename>hardware-configuration.nix</filename> is included from
<filename>configuration.nix</filename> and will be overwritten by future
invocations of <command>nixos-generate-config</command>; thus, you
generally should not modify it.) Additionally, you may want to look at
<link xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware">Hardware
configuration for known-hardware</link> at this point or after
installation.
</para>
<note>
<para>
Depending on your hardware configuration or type of file system, you may
need to set the option <option>boot.initrd.kernelModules</option> to
include the kernel modules that are necessary for mounting the root file
system, otherwise the installed system will not be able to boot. (If this
happens, boot from the installation media again, mount the target file
system on <filename>/mnt</filename>, fix
<filename>/mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix</filename> and rerun
<filename>nixos-install</filename>.) In most cases,
<command>nixos-generate-config</command> will figure out the required
modules.
</para>
</note>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
Do the installation:
<screen>
<prompt># </prompt>nixos-install</screen>
This will install your system based on the configuration you provided.
If anything fails due to a configuration problem or any other issue
(such as a network outage while downloading binaries from the NixOS
binary cache), you can re-run <command>nixos-install</command> after
fixing your <filename>configuration.nix</filename>.
</para>
<para>
As the last step, <command>nixos-install</command> will ask you to set the
password for the <literal>root</literal> user, e.g.
<screen>
setting root password...
New password: ***
Retype new password: ***</screen>
<note>
<para>
For unattended installations, it is possible to use
<command>nixos-install --no-root-passwd</command> in order to disable
the password prompt entirely.
</para>
</note>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
If everything went well:
<screen>
<prompt># </prompt>reboot</screen>
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
You should now be able to boot into the installed NixOS. The GRUB boot
menu shows a list of <emphasis>available configurations</emphasis>
(initially just one). Every time you change the NixOS configuration (see
<link
linkend="sec-changing-config">Changing Configuration</link>
), a new item is added to the menu. This allows you to easily roll back to
a previous configuration if something goes wrong.
</para>
<para>
You should log in and change the <literal>root</literal> password with
<command>passwd</command>.
</para>
<para>
You’ll probably want to create some user accounts as well, which can be
done with <command>useradd</command>:
<screen>
<prompt>$ </prompt>useradd -c 'Eelco Dolstra' -m eelco
<prompt>$ </prompt>passwd eelco</screen>
</para>
<para>
You may also want to install some software. This will be covered
in <xref linkend="sec-package-management" />.
</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-summary">
<title>Installation summary</title>
<para>
To summarise, <xref linkend="ex-install-sequence" /> shows a typical
sequence of commands for installing NixOS on an empty hard drive (here
<filename>/dev/sda</filename>). <xref linkend="ex-config"
/> shows a
corresponding configuration Nix expression.
</para>
<example xml:id="ex-partition-scheme-MBR">
<title>Example partition schemes for NixOS on <filename>/dev/sda</filename> (MBR)</title>
<screen language="commands">
<prompt># </prompt>parted /dev/sda -- mklabel msdos
<prompt># </prompt>parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 1MiB -8GiB
<prompt># </prompt>parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap -8GiB 100%</screen>
</example>
<example xml:id="ex-partition-scheme-UEFI">
<title>Example partition schemes for NixOS on <filename>/dev/sda</filename> (UEFI)</title>
<screen language="commands">
<prompt># </prompt>parted /dev/sda -- mklabel gpt
<prompt># </prompt>parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 512MiB -8GiB
<prompt># </prompt>parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap -8GiB 100%
<prompt># </prompt>parted /dev/sda -- mkpart ESP fat32 1MiB 512MiB
<prompt># </prompt>parted /dev/sda -- set 3 esp on</screen>
</example>
<example xml:id="ex-install-sequence">
<title>Commands for Installing NixOS on <filename>/dev/sda</filename></title>
<para>
With a partitioned disk.
<screen language="commands">
<prompt># </prompt>mkfs.ext4 -L nixos /dev/sda1
<prompt># </prompt>mkswap -L swap /dev/sda2
<prompt># </prompt>swapon /dev/sda2
<prompt># </prompt>mkfs.fat -F 32 -n boot /dev/sda3 # <lineannotation>(for UEFI systems only)</lineannotation>
<prompt># </prompt>mount /dev/disk/by-label/nixos /mnt
<prompt># </prompt>mkdir -p /mnt/boot # <lineannotation>(for UEFI systems only)</lineannotation>
<prompt># </prompt>mount /dev/disk/by-label/boot /mnt/boot # <lineannotation>(for UEFI systems only)</lineannotation>
<prompt># </prompt>nixos-generate-config --root /mnt
<prompt># </prompt>nano /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
<prompt># </prompt>nixos-install
<prompt># </prompt>reboot</screen>
</para>
</example>
<example xml:id='ex-config'>
<title>NixOS Configuration</title>
<programlisting>
{ config, pkgs, ... }: {
imports = [
# Include the results of the hardware scan.
./hardware-configuration.nix
];
<xref linkend="opt-boot.loader.grub.device"/> = "/dev/sda"; # <lineannotation>(for BIOS systems only)</lineannotation>
<xref linkend="opt-boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable"/> = true; # <lineannotation>(for UEFI systems only)</lineannotation>
# Note: setting fileSystems is generally not
# necessary, since nixos-generate-config figures them out
# automatically in hardware-configuration.nix.
#<link linkend="opt-fileSystems._name_.device">fileSystems."/".device</link> = "/dev/disk/by-label/nixos";
# Enable the OpenSSH server.
services.sshd.enable = true;
}
</programlisting>
</example>
</section>
<section xml:id="sec-installation-additional-notes">
<title>Additional installation notes</title>
<xi:include href="../from_md/installation/installing-usb.section.xml" />
<xi:include href="../from_md/installation/installing-pxe.section.xml" />
<xi:include href="../from_md/installation/installing-virtualbox-guest.section.xml" />
<xi:include href="../from_md/installation/installing-from-other-distro.section.xml" />
<xi:include href="../from_md/installation/installing-behind-a-proxy.section.xml" />
</section>
</chapter>