nix-tools

A collection of scripts and utilities for provisioning and managing NixOS.

scripts/kexec-vps.sh

A script designed to force cheap, low-RAM (1GB) VPS instances into the NixOS live installer environment. It aggressively kills background services, builds a temporary swap file, drops kernel caches, and hot-swaps the running OS using kexec.

Requirements

• A fresh VPS running Debian 12 (recommended) or Ubuntu.
• Executed as root.

Usage

SSH into your fresh VPS and run the script directly from your Forgejo instance:

curl -sL https://git.josephembrey.com/josephembrey/nix-tools/raw/branch/main/scripts/kexec-vps.sh | bash

scripts/infect-vps.sh

Prepares a cheap, low-RAM VPS for nixos-infect. It wipes previous failed attempts, downloads nixos-infect, patches it to use /var/tmp instead of /tmp (bypassing tmpfs limits), and runs the installer in a retry loop for flaky networks.

Requirements

• A fresh VPS running Debian or Ubuntu.
• Executed as root.

Usage

SSH into your fresh VPS and run:

curl -sL https://git.josephembrey.com/josephembrey/nix-tools/raw/branch/main/scripts/infect-vps.sh | bash