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41 lines
1.3 KiB
Markdown
41 lines
1.3 KiB
Markdown
# Low-footprint NixOS images
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Miniguest makes lightweight [NixOS] guest images for popular virtualisation
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tools. The guest systems live entirely on the host's Nix store. The host
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system does not need to be NixOS.
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## How lightweight?
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Lighter than if it were the host system. There is no disk image, no
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bootloader, no ISO. Just plain immutable files that are friendly to Nix's
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deduplication mechanisms.
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## Getting started
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You can read the [Installation guide], then the [Usage guide].
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## Support Vector
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QEMU virtual machines and Linux containers are supported.
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For VMs, [Libvirt] integration is present. For containers, Miniguest can
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produce templates in [LXC] format.
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## Related work
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- [`nixos-container`](https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable#ch-containers):
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Miniguest takes inspiration from NixOS's containers, however, containers
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wraps `systemd-nspawn`, whereas Miniguest delegates container management
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to any supported hypervisor.
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- `nixos-rebuild build-vm`:
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Miniguest borrows the store-sharing mechanism from NixOS's built-in
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lightweight QEMU VMs when applicable, but it lets a framework take care of
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the VM configuration and lifecycle.
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[NixOS]: https://nixos.org
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[Libvirt]: https://libvirt.org
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[LXC]: https://linuxcontainers.org/lxc/introduction/
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[Installation guide]: ./INSTALL.md
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[Usage guide]: ./USAGE.md
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