How to Install NixOS on GCE

Jan 7 2024 · 7 min · NixOS, GCE, How-to

⚠️ Prerequisites:

make sure you have a running NixOS on some machine or at least an access to nix-shell or nix shell CLI commands.

you have enabled Cloud Storage Buckets API on your project.

you have created a bucket on your project (write down the bucket’s name!).

Steps:

on your NixOS, clone nixpkgs.

git clone --depth=1 --branch <nixOS_version> https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs.git

run.
```
nix shell nixpkgs#google-cloud-sdk
```
run
```
gcloud auth login.
```

this will redirect you to your browser to login via your GCE’s google account.

export your PROJECT_ID with this command.
```
export PROJECT_ID=<your_project_id>
```
set your project on Google Cloud SDK with this command.
```
gcloud config set project $PROJECT_ID
```
you can then check if it has been set using.
```
gcloud config get project
```
this should print out your PROJECT_ID.

now, you can run this command to upload NixOS.tar image on your Bucket:

BUCKET_NAME=<your_bucket_name> nixpkgs/nixos/maintainers/scripts/gce/create-gce.sh

Untitled

wait until it’s done.

this process will run a shell script that will install NixOS, compress it to .tar, and then upload it to your Bucket.
you can then check it on your Bucket. there will be a new file in there.

next step is to set your to-be-installed server’s compute/zone a.k.a. location. this can be done using

gcloud config get compute/zone <your_preferred_zone>

e.g.

gcloud config get compute/zone asia-southeast1-b

copy the URI of the NixOS image on your Bucket. you can do so by opening the image’s menu and Copy gsutil URI.

now is the time to create a new image on your Google Compute Engine using the custom image you just created and uploaded to your Bucket.

run this command:

gcloud compute images create <your_server_name> --source-uri <your_image_uri>

for instance:

gcloud compute images create gce-nixos-asia-southeast1-b --source-uri gs://gce_nixos_server/nixos-image-24.05pre-git-x86_64-linux.raw.tar.gz

well done! now if it’s there’s nothing wrong, you’ll get this printed on your screen
now you can create a new instance on your Google Compute Engine as usual, but this time config the Boot Disk, go to Custom Image, and then select the newly-created image.
when everything’s good with your instance config, you can proceed to create your instance. after that you can go check your Compute Engine, there should be a new instance there!