Documentation: How do I generate iPXE files of a flake?

MrHamel commented 9 months ago

Problem

No documentation exists for taking a flake and turning it into a series of iPXE boot files. I run the below commands, and I get the iPXE script (modified for my environment of course), kernel, and initrd. Another issue entirely is on boot, it panics saying "VFS: Unable to mount root fs..." and don't know what I'm doing wrong.

nix build --impure .\#nixosConfigurations.pxe.config.system.build.kernel .\#nixosConfigurations.pxe.config.system.build.netbootRamdisk .\#nixosConfigurations.pxe.config.system.build.netbootIpxeScript

[x] checked latest Nixpkgs manual (source) and latest NixOS manual (source)
[x] checked open documentation issues for possible duplicates
[x] checked open documentation pull requests for possible solutions

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MrHamel commented 9 months ago

Noticing as I go further into this adventure, the initrd file is zstd compressed. I don't know if that impacts anything, but I still run into that kernel panic, whether it's the compressed or uncompressed version.

mweinelt commented 9 months ago

I think you are looking for https://github.com/DeterminateSystems/nix-netboot-serve, which allows serving a NixOS system closure as an initrd over http/https.

MrHamel commented 9 months ago

I've read that and it seems like an unnecessary number of steps for the process, compared to using something like nixos-generators for ISOs and Proxmox LXC files.

NixOS / nixpkgs

Documentation: How do I generate iPXE files of a flake? #284715

Problem