findiso now works — the installer loop-mounted the iso, mounted the store
squashfs and the overlay — then died with:
stage 2 init script (/mnt-root//init) not found
The live ISO's root is a tmpfs; stage 1 locates the real system's init via
init=<toplevel>/init, which the grub/isolinux menu supplies on a normal boot
(iso-image.nix:47,159). EFI-stub-booting our own cmdline off the ESP, we
never passed it, so stage 1 fell back to /mnt-root/init on the empty tmpfs.
Build the installer-iso toplevel and prepend init=$toplevel/init to the
cmdline (both boot modes). That path resolves once the store squashfs mounts,
because the iso carries the full closure of its own toplevel. Also switch
root=fstab -> root=LABEL=<volumeID> to match what the ISO menu passes (findiso
overwrites /dev/root regardless), and add boot.shell_on_fail for a shell
instead of the reboot/ignore prompt if stage 1 ever fails again.
Verified: the generated cmdline carries init=/nix/store/<toplevel>/init and
that store path contains /init.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
`install <config> localhost` assumed systemd-boot. terra's CachyOS boots
Limine, so it stopped at "/boot/loader/entries doesn't exist" — the check
added in e538788 doing its job, but with nowhere to go.
Limine cannot help here at all: `bootctl status` lists it as
`✗ One-shot entry control`, and CachyOS's pacman hooks regenerate
limine.conf regardless. So drop below the bootloader entirely and use the
firmware's own BootNext, pointing at a temporary UEFI entry that
EFI-stub-boots the installer kernel straight off the ESP. That keeps the
property which makes this safe to attempt: BootNext is spent by that one
boot, so a failed try still comes back on the normal bootloader.
- picked at runtime: systemd-boot loader entry when $BOOT/loader/entries
exists, else arm_efi_bootnext(). jupiter/neptun and terra-after-install
keep the systemd-boot path.
- `efibootmgr --create-only`, NOT `--create`: the latter pushes the entry
to the front of BootOrder, which would make a wiped installer the
permanent default if the install died halfway.
- the EFI stub loads initrd= from the volume it was loaded from, so this
mode stages on --print-esp-path rather than --print-boot-path.
- stale entries from an earlier attempt are removed before adding one, and
homelab-auto-install.service deletes the entry as soon as it boots, so
nothing lingers in NVRAM pointing at a reformatted partition.
- label matching is EXACT ("Homelab Installer"); a prefix match would have
deleted this box's Windows or Limine entry.
Verified against terra's real NVRAM (read-only): the label parser picks out
Limine/UEFI OS/Windows by exact name and rejects prefixes, and both branches
run end-to-end under stubs — BootNext mode emits the right --disk/--part,
loader path and initrd= cmdline, systemd-boot mode still writes its entry and
never calls efibootmgr.
README/CLAUDE.md corrected: terra runs Limine, not systemd-boot.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The `install <config> localhost` auto-path added in 0ea9020 could not have
completed. Fixed three blockers plus the guard that was silently not guarding.
Inside installer-iso the run died before doing anything:
- systemd sets no $HOME for a service without User= (SetLoginEnvironment=
defaults to false), and this script runs under `set -u`, so it aborted on
the bare $HOME with "unbound variable". Added $KEYDIR + Environment=HOME.
- the host key it needs to seed /etc/ssh isn't on the ISO at all — that is
built from a public repo and carries no credentials on purpose. It now
travels on the boot partition, located via homelab.keypart=<PARTUUID> on
the kernel cmdline, and dies with the disko wipe minutes later. Without
it sops can't decrypt on boot #1 and mutableUsers locks darman for good.
- installation-cd-minimal leaves experimental-features unset, so both
`nix run` and `nixos-install --flake` failed. (The nixos-images kexec
installer sets them itself, which is why the same branch worked after
kexec-local but not from the ISO.)
The staging-dir guard passed everything on btrfs: findmnt prints the
subvolume as /dev/sdb2[/@], lsblk can't open that, and an empty parent was
treated as "different disk" — so it allowed staging the iso on the very disk
disko then wiped. terra's current CachyOS root is exactly that layout. Now
uses --nofsroot, resolves EVERY whole-disk ancestor (LVM/RAID span several:
/mnt/ssd_01 -> sdd+sde), and treats "can't tell" as a hard error. btrfs
staging is refused outright — stage-1 mounts a btrfs volume's top level, so
an iso inside a subvolume is unreachable.
findiso= lost its leading slash whenever the staging mountpoint was /,
giving /findisovar/tmp/x.iso and an emergency shell after the reboot.
Also:
- confirm before rebooting, like flash/kexec-local already do; --yes skips
it and is what the ISO passes itself
- $BOOT from `bootctl --print-boot-path`, not a hardcoded /boot
- free-space checks on both target partitions before the ~1GB copy
- `nix run .#disko` / `.#nixos-anywhere` from locked inputs instead of
github:... master-of-the-day, resolved while a disk is being wiped
- one_match warns instead of silently taking [0]; require_tracked covers
every hosts/<config>/*.nix; flash traps its mount
- drop nixos-images' `inputs.nixpkgs.follows` — that input doesn't exist,
it only printed a warning on every nix command
Verified: the prepare path exercised under stubs against this box's real
disks (btrfs-on-OS-disk, tmpfs, LVM, subdirectory), shellcheck clean, all
six configs evaluate, checks.kexec-local still passes.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
./scripts/deploy install <config> localhost now branches on is_live_installer()
(checks uname -n): outside a live installer it builds installer-iso, stages
its kernel/initrd on the ESP and the iso file on a disk the caller picks
(never auto-picked — the wrong disk here is destroyed mid-install), writes a
systemd-boot one-shot findiso= entry with homelab.install=<config> on the
kernel cmdline, and does a real systemctl reboot (not kexec — terra's
kexec-local hang is specifically in kexec's device-shutdown pass, a real ACPI
reboot never runs that code at all).
installer-iso gains homelab-auto-install.service: once homelab-checkout.service
clones the repo, it reads homelab.install= back off /proc/cmdline and re-runs
the identical deploy command itself, now genuinely inside the installer, so
it takes the disko+nixos-install branch instead of preparing again. The whole
reinstall is one command and unattended after the first reboot.
Also: every root-requiring path (kexec-local, the new prepare-and-reboot
branch, the disko+nixos-install branch) self-elevates via a require_root()
helper that re-execs the original invocation under sudo -E, instead of dying
and asking the caller to prefix sudo themselves. Uses an absolute script path
captured before the script's own cd, so the re-exec is correct regardless of
how it was invoked.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
require_tracked() in scripts/deploy now skips its git-tracked-file check
when there's no .git at all (nothing can be untracked in that case) — needed
for an earlier baked-in-`self` approach and kept as a generic fallback.
Since the repo is public now, installer-iso instead clones current master
via a homelab-checkout.service (after network-online.target) on every boot,
to /root/homelab. One ISO build stays useful indefinitely instead of going
stale, and there's still no rsync-the-repo-over step.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
kexec-local could never actually jump. nixos-images' kexec-run.sh ends with
`nohup sh -c "sleep 6 && $SCRIPT_DIR/kexec -e" &` and returns immediately, so
the EXIT trap's `rm -rf "$stage"` deleted the kexec binary out from under the
sleeping shell. The box stayed on the old kernel and it looked like a slow boot.
Clear the trap before jumping, verify /sys/kernel/kexec_loaded, then sleep past
the timer.
Preflight everything before the point of no return, since this jumps the machine
you are typing at: CONFIG_KEXEC, kernel lockdown, exec-capable staging dir, free
space, RAM vs image size, and that the tarball holds all five expected files.
Stage on /var/tmp rather than /tmp because kexec-run.sh appends to initrd in
place and execs from that directory. sync before jumping (kexec -e skips
unmount). Confirmation prompt naming the host, since run in the wrong terminal
this kexecs the laptop; --yes skips it.
Drop the ssh-keygen -R added to the remote kexec path: kexec-run.sh copies
/etc/ssh/ssh_host_* into the appended initrd and restore-remote-access.nix
installs them back, so the host key survives the jump.
Proton Pass items are now keyed by <config> instead of <host>, since the address
is incidental and the config name is stable. kexec therefore takes <config>
<host>. Resolve titles among --filter-state active items first: a trashed item
with the same title shadowed the active one and returned an empty password,
which is indistinguishable from "no entry" and silently fell back to prompting
(hit on darman@neptun).
Other fixes: replace `ls glob | head -1` (returns empty with exit 0 on no match)
with a helper that dies; guard against untracked hosts/<config> since flakes
ignore untracked files; feed the sudo password more than once under setsid;
handle empty arrays under set -u; tolerate empty FSTYPE in the SD-card root
partition lookup; preflight zstdcat/dd/lsblk before the destructive dd; list
image and flash in the usage strings.
Add checks.x86_64-linux.kexec-local, a VM test driving the real script. It is
the only way to exercise kexec-local, which cannot be rehearsed on hardware. It
asserts the box left the old kernel, returned as nixos-installer, lost its old
/run, and kept its ssh host key. HOMELAB_KEXEC_TARBALL lets it reuse a prebuilt
installer instead of building ~500MB inside the guest.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
jupiter had a leftover docker-compose Immich on the RAID (/mnt/data/Immich,
9.9G) that survived the NixOS install. Native module now, media at
/mnt/data/AppData/immich, caddy vhost on 2283 with a 50GB body limit
(caddy's default rejects video uploads).
The package comes from nixpkgs-unstable, the module from the 26.05 pin:
26.05 ships immich 2.7.5, but that database was last written by 3.0.0 and
migrations only run forward --
corrupted migrations: previously executed migration
1776217577402-DropAuditTable is missing
Safe because the two module files are byte-identical at these revisions;
services/media/immich.nix carries the diff command to re-check on a bump.
Drop the input once the stable pin ships >= 3.0.0.
immich needs group "users" only to traverse /mnt/data/AppData (drwx--x---);
its own dir stays 0700 immich:immich. mediaLocation is outside /var/lib, so
the module's tmpfiles entry only ADJUSTS it -- add a rule that creates it.
scripts/immich-import-legacy-db does the database half: boots a copy of the
legacy PGDATA under the matching image (PG14 + vchord 0.3.0 + pgvector
0.8.1), dumps it with the local pg_dump 17, restores into a scratch DB,
fixes ownership, and only swaps after confirmation. Never touches the
original. The old cluster ran VectorChord, not pgvecto.rs, so the smart
search and face embeddings survive -- no ML re-run.
Imported: 666 assets, 25 people, 647 clip + 359 face embeddings, 2 users.
Every deploy stopped at a password prompt. pass-cli is installed, so read
the passwords from the HomeLab vault instead, per command:
switch/boot/test darman@<config> -> nixos-rebuild's sudo prompt
kexec/install root@<host> -> the target's ssh password
nixos-rebuild prompts via getpass(), which reads /dev/tty and ignores a
piped stdin, so that one runs under setsid: no controlling terminal means
getpass falls back to stdin. kexec wraps the master ssh in `sshpass -e`
(scp rides the control socket) and pins password auth so a key can't fall
through into a second prompt; install uses nixos-anywhere's own
--env-password.
Missing pass-cli, a logged-out session, or an absent item all yield an
empty string and the original interactive prompt -- nothing becomes
mandatory. Passwords never reach a command line.
common.nix now sets security.sudo.wheelNeedsPassword = true, but
--use-remote-sudo is deprecated and only prefixes commands with sudo --
it never prompts, so every remote rebuild failed. --ask-sudo-password is
the alias for --elevate=sudo --ask-elevate-password, which asks once and
feeds it via sudo --stdin.
This should have gone in with the wheelNeedsPassword change itself.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Pi's vfat partition isn't mounted at runtime (u-boot reads it pre-boot), so
/boot/firmware doesn't exist -> keyFile moved to the always-mounted root fs.
deploy flash now drops it on the ext4 root partition.
- after dd, if ~/.config/homelab/<config>/age.txt exists, mount the FAT boot
partition and drop it as sops-age.txt (mercury). Key stays off-repo + out of
the store + out of the image; no manual mount step.
darman
