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Remove nixops examples and documentation

2021-03-15 12:42:47 +00:00

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Preliminary steps

Get a machine to deploy nix-bitcoin on.

Tutorials

Install and configure NixOS for nix-bitcoin on your own hardware

Tutorial: install and configure NixOS for nix-bitcoin on your own hardware

0. Preparation

Optional: Make sure you have the latest firmware for your system (BIOS, microcode updates).
Optional: Disable Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) in the BIOS

Researchers recommend disabling (SMT), also known as Hyper-Threading Technology in the Intel® world to significantly reduce the impact of speculative execution-based attacks (https://mdsattacks.com/).

1. NixOS installation

This is borrowed from the NixOS manual. Look there for more information.

Obtain latest NixOS. For example:

wget https://releases.nixos.org/nixos/19.09/nixos-19.09.2284.bf7c0f0461e/nixos-minimal-19.09.2284.bf7c0f0461e-x86_64-linux.iso
sha256sum nixos-minimal-19.09.2284.bf7c0f0461e-x86_64-linux.iso
# output: 9768eb945bef410fccfb82cb3d2e7ce7c02c3430aed0f2f1527273cb080fff3e

Alternatively you can build NixOS from source by following the instructions at https://nixos.org/nixos/manual/index.html#sec-building-cd.

Write NixOS iso to install media (USB/CD). For example:
```
cp nixos-minimal-19.09.2284.bf7c0f0461e-x86_64-linux.iso /dev/sdX
```
Replace /dev/sdX with the correct device name. You can find this using sudo fdisk -l
Boot the system

You will have to find out if your hardware uses UEFI or Legacy Boot for the next step.

Option 1: Partition and format for UEFI

parted /dev/sda -- mklabel gpt
parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 512MiB -8GiB
parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap -8GiB 100%
parted /dev/sda -- mkpart ESP fat32 1MiB 512MiB
parted /dev/sda -- set 3 boot on
mkfs.ext4 -L nixos /dev/sda1
mkswap -L swap /dev/sda2
mkfs.fat -F 32 -n boot /dev/sda3
mount /dev/disk/by-label/nixos /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/boot
mount /dev/disk/by-label/boot /mnt/boot
swapon /dev/sda2

Option 2: Partition and format for Legacy Boot (MBR)

parted /dev/sda -- mklabel msdos
parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 1MiB -8GiB
parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary linux-swap -8GiB 100%
mkfs.ext4 -L nixos /dev/sda1
mkswap -L swap /dev/sda2
mount /dev/disk/by-label/nixos /mnt
swapon /dev/sda2

Option 3: Set up encrypted partitions:

Follow the guide at https://gist.github.com/martijnvermaat/76f2e24d0239470dd71050358b4d5134.

Generate NixOS config

nixos-generate-config --root /mnt
nano /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix

Option 1: Edit NixOS configuration for UEFI

{ config, pkgs, ... }: {
  imports = [
    # Include the results of the hardware scan.
    ./hardware-configuration.nix
  ];

  boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable = true;

  # Note: setting fileSystems is generally not
  # necessary, since nixos-generate-config figures them out
  # automatically in hardware-configuration.nix.
  #fileSystems."/".device = "/dev/disk/by-label/nixos";

  # Enable the OpenSSH server.
  services.openssh = {
    enable = true;
    permitRootLogin = "yes";
  };
}

Option 2: Edit NixOS configuration for Legacy Boot (MBR)

{ config, pkgs, ... }: {
  imports = [
    # Include the results of the hardware scan.
    ./hardware-configuration.nix
  ];

  boot.loader.grub.device = "/dev/sda";

  # Note: setting fileSystems is generally not
  # necessary, since nixos-generate-config figures them out
  # automatically in hardware-configuration.nix.
  #fileSystems."/".device = "/dev/disk/by-label/nixos";

  # Enable the OpenSSH server.
  services.openssh = {
    enable = true;
    permitRootLogin = "yes";
  };
}

Do the installation

nixos-install

Set root password

setting root password...
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:

If everything went well
```
reboot
```

2. Nix installation

The following steps are meant to be run on the machine you deploy from, not the machine you deploy to. You can also build Nix from source by following the instructions at https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#ch-installing-source.

Install Dependencies (Debian 9 stretch)

sudo apt-get install curl git gnupg2 dirmngr

Install latest Nix in "multi-user mode" with GPG Verification according to https://nixos.org/nix/download.html

curl -o install-nix-2.3.3 https://releases.nixos.org/nix/nix-2.3.3/install
curl -o install-nix-2.3.3.asc https://releases.nixos.org/nix/nix-2.3.3/install.asc
gpg2 --recv-keys B541D55301270E0BCF15CA5D8170B4726D7198DE
gpg2 --verify ./install-nix-2.3.3.asc
sh ./install-nix-2.3.3 --daemon

Then follow the instructions. Open a new terminal window when you're done.

If you get an error similar to

error: cloning builder process: Operation not permitted
error: unable to start build process
/tmp/nix-binary-tarball-unpack.hqawN4uSPr/unpack/nix-2.2.1-x86_64-linux/install: unable to install Nix into your default profile

you're likely not installing as multi-user because you forgot to pass the --daemon flag to the install script.

Optional: Disallow substitutes

You can put substitute = false to your nix.conf usually found in /etc/nix/ to build the packages from source. This eliminates an attack vector where nix's build server or binary cache is compromised.

3. Setup deployment directory

Clone this project

cd
git clone https://github.com/fort-nix/nix-bitcoin

Obtain the hash of the latest nix-bitcoin release
```
cd nix-bitcoin/examples
nix-shell
```
This will download the nix-bitcoin dependencies and might take a while without giving an output. Now in the nix-shell run
```
fetch-release > nix-bitcoin-release.nix
```

Create a new directory for your nix-bitcoin deployment and copy initial files from nix-bitcoin

cd ../../
mkdir nix-bitcoin-node
cd nix-bitcoin-node
# TODO
cp -r ../nix-bitcoin/examples/{configuration.nix,shell.nix,nix-bitcoin-release.nix} .

4. Deploy with TODO

TODO
Edit configuration.nix
```
nano configuration.nix
```
Uncomment ./hardware-configuration.nix line by removing #.
Create hardware-configuration.nix.
```
nano hardware-configuration.nix
```
Copy contents of your NixOS machine's /etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix to this file.
Add boot option to hardware-configuration.nix

Option 1: Enable systemd boot for UEFI
```
boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable = true;
```
Option 2: Set grub device for Legacy Boot (MBR)
```
boot.loader.grub.device = "/dev/sda";
```
Enter environment
```
nix-shell
```
NOTE that a new directory secrets/ appeared which contains the secrets for your node.
TODO
Adjust configuration by opening the configuration.nix file and enable/disable the modules you want by editing this file. Pay particular attention to lines that are preceded by FIXME comments.
TODO

For security reasons, all normal system management tasks can and should be performed with the operator user. Logging in as root should be done as rarely as possible.

See usage.md for usage instructions, such as how to update.

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