Support deploying from macOS without configuring remote builders

[misuzu]

This could be achieved by passing --eval-store auto --store ssh-ng://builder to nix build (where builder is a target host). Currently it is impossible.

[PhilTaken]

Can you try #175 and see if that solves your issue?

[gdinh]

I haven't been able to get it to work with remote builders.

Flake:

{

  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-22.05-darwin";
    nixpkgs-unstable.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-unstable";

    darwin.url = "github:lnl7/nix-darwin/master";
    darwin.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";

    home-manager.url = "github:nix-community/home-manager/release-22.05";
    home-manager.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";

    deploy-rs.url = "github:serokell/deploy-rs";
    deploy-rs.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
  };

  outputs = { self, darwin, nixpkgs, nixpkgs-unstable, home-manager, deploy-rs, ... }: {

    nixosConfigurations.sb = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
      system = "x86_64-linux";
      modules = [ ./hosts/sb/configuration.nix ];
    };

    deploy.nodes.sb = {
      sshUser = "grace";
      hostname = "192.168.86.64";
      remoteBuild = true;
      profilesOrder = [ "system" ];
      profiles.system = {
        remoteBuild = true;
        path = deploy-rs.lib.x86_64-linux.activate.nixos self.nixosConfigurations.sb;
      };
    };

    deploy = {
      magicRollback = true;
      autoRollback = true;
      remoteBuild = true;
    };
    checks = builtins.mapAttrs (system: deployLib: deployLib.deployChecks self.deploy) deploy-rs.lib;
  };
}

Output:

╰─ result/bin/deploy .#sb --remote-build -d
🚀 ❓ [deploy] [DEBUG] Checking for flake support
🚀 ℹ️ [deploy] [INFO] Running checks for flake in .
warning: Git tree '/Users/grace/.config/gnix' is dirty
warning: unknown flake output 'darwinConfigurations'
warning: unknown flake output 'darwinPackages'
warning: unknown flake output 'deploy'
error: a 'x86_64-linux' with features {} is required to build '/nix/store/lpwa4l59sgjbfyngc282p2yldim9fd6y-builder.pl.drv', but I am a 'aarch64-darwin' with features {benchmark, big-parallel, nixos-test}
🚀 ❌ [deploy] [ERROR] Failed to check deployment: Nix checking command resulted in a bad exit code: Some(1)

[gdinh]

Update: it seems that this line is causing the issue

checks = builtins.mapAttrs (system: deployLib: deployLib.deployChecks self.deploy) deploy-rs.lib;

Since the checks are evaluated locally, evaluating them requires building nixosConfigurations locally as well, which gives the bug seen above. Removing it fixes the problem.

Is there a way to run the checks remotely as well?

Thanks!

[PhilTaken]

Since the checks are evaluated locally, evaluating them requires building nixosConfigurations locally as well, which gives the bug seen above. Removing it fixes the problem.

That is expected behaviour; remote testing, should be added to remoteBuild honestly.

[ketan-vijayvargiya]

Since the checks are evaluated locally, evaluating them requires building nixosConfigurations locally as well, which gives the bug seen above. Removing it fixes the problem.

Thanks for the tip - it works.

I do see this in the comments:

This is highly advised, and will prevent many possible mistakes

What's the worst case scenario if we remove those checks (until, hopefully, the problem is fixed)?