forked from lix-project/lix
ca4d8ce9e2
The manual uses `nix-env -i` without `-A` prominently, teaching a bad practice to newcomers.
62 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
62 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
# Serving a Nix store via SSH
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You can tell Nix to automatically fetch needed binaries from a remote
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Nix store via SSH. For example, the following installs Firefox,
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automatically fetching any store paths in Firefox’s closure if they are
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available on the server `avalon`:
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```console
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$ nix-env -iA nixpkgs.firefox --substituters ssh://alice@avalon
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```
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This works similar to the binary cache substituter that Nix usually
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uses, only using SSH instead of HTTP: if a store path `P` is needed, Nix
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will first check if it’s available in the Nix store on `avalon`. If not,
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it will fall back to using the binary cache substituter, and then to
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building from source.
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> **Note**
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>
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> The SSH substituter currently does not allow you to enter an SSH
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> passphrase interactively. Therefore, you should use `ssh-add` to load
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> the decrypted private key into `ssh-agent`.
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You can also copy the closure of some store path, without installing it
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into your profile, e.g.
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```console
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$ nix-store -r /nix/store/m85bxg…-firefox-34.0.5 --substituters
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ssh://alice@avalon
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```
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This is essentially equivalent to doing
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```console
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$ nix-copy-closure --from alice@avalon
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/nix/store/m85bxg…-firefox-34.0.5
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```
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You can use SSH’s *forced command* feature to set up a restricted user
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account for SSH substituter access, allowing read-only access to the
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local Nix store, but nothing more. For example, add the following lines
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to `sshd_config` to restrict the user `nix-ssh`:
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Match User nix-ssh
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AllowAgentForwarding no
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AllowTcpForwarding no
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PermitTTY no
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PermitTunnel no
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X11Forwarding no
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ForceCommand nix-store --serve
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Match All
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On NixOS, you can accomplish the same by adding the following to your
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`configuration.nix`:
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```nix
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nix.sshServe.enable = true;
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nix.sshServe.keys = [ "ssh-dss AAAAB3NzaC1k... bob@example.org" ];
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```
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where the latter line lists the public keys of users that are allowed to
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connect.
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