[Question] remoteBuild has no effect, still build locally.

[amalgame21]

I used remoteBuild = true; but it still build on local machine.
same as --remote-build flag.
I configure the flake like this:

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-24.05";
    deploy-rs.url = "github:serokell/deploy-rs";
  };
  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, deploy-rs, ... } @ inputs: {
    nixosConfigurations = {
      remotelaptop = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
        # ...
      };
      # ...
    };

    deploy.nodes = {
      "remotelaptop" = {
        hostname = "l"; # hostname in ~/.ssh/config
        interactiveSudo = true;
        remoteBuild = true;
        profiles.system = {
          user = "root";
          sshUser = "normaluser";
          path = deploy-rs.lib.x86_64-linux.activate.nixos self.nixosConfigurations."remotelaptop";
        };
      };
    };
    # This is highly advised, and will prevent many possible mistakes
    checks = builtins.mapAttrs (system: deployLib: deployLib.deployChecks self.deploy) deploy-rs.lib;
  };
}

I am very new to deploy-rs, this is the first deploy system I use after I switch to nixos.
Usually I just ssh into the remote system and run nixos-rebuild switch, which is quite demanding.
I have no experience to deploy remote machine like this, even the nixos-rebuild --target-host --build-host command (Not using it because it seem not supporting sudo with password)
Does it require some additional settings like nix.settings.trusted-user ? Thanks!

[amalgame21]

I am using gpg key protected by password (gpg-agent) as ssh key
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GnuPG#SSH_agent

programs.gnupg.agent = {
  enable = true;
  enableSSHSupport = true;
};

Is it the problem?

[amalgame21]

Seems it is caused by the nixpkgs.hostPlatform and nixpkgs.buildPlatform

#200 (comment)

deploy-rs is so hard to use imho, documentation seems incomplete.

[nikp123]

deploy-rs is so hard to use imho, documentation seems incomplete.

I know this is off-topic: But have you found any alternatives? NixOps just seems deprecated, and the other solutions don't seem that popular.

Currently I invoke nixos-rebuild for every machine that I manage which quickly gets tiresome.

Reason: I'm running into the same issue of everything being built locally instead on the target machines which just fills up my hard drive space pointlessly and costs obscene amounts of bandwidth due to garbage collection.

Ideally it should behave like the following command:

nixos-rebuild \
      --build-host root@NSServer \
      --target-host root@NSServer \
      --flake .#NSServer \
      --use-substitutes \
      --option builders-use-substitutes true \
      switch