forked from M-Labs/wfvm
55 lines
2.0 KiB
Markdown
55 lines
2.0 KiB
Markdown
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WFVM
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====
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A Nix library to create and manage virtual machines running Windows, a medieval operating system found on most computers in 2020. The F stands for "Functional" or a four-letter word of your choice.
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* Reproducible - everything runs in the Nix sandbox with no tricks.
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* Fully automatic, parameterizable Windows 10 installation.
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* Uses QEMU with KVM.
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* Supports incremental installation (using "layers") of additional software via QEMU copy-on-write backing chains.
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* Included layers: Anaconda3, a software installer chock full of bugs that pretends to be a package manager, Visual Studio, a spamming system for Microsoft accounts that includes a compiler, and MSYS2, which is the only sane component in the whole lot.
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* Supports running arbitrary commands in a VM image in snapshot mode inside a derivation and retrieve the result.
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* Network access from the VM is heavily restricted to avoid issues with Microsoft spyware and similar programs.
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* When used with Hydra, redistribution of nonfree content can be blocked.
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Example applications:
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* Creating reproducible Windows VM images with pre-installed software.
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* Compiling Conda packages with Visual Studio in a fully reproducible manner and without having to deal with the constant data corruption caused by Conda.
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* Running Windows unit tests on Hydra.
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Thanks to Adam Höse from Tweag.io for help with with this development.
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How to use
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==========
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Install a Windows image
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-----------------------
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1. Adjust demo-image.nix accordingly
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2. Run:
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If in impure mode
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```shell
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nix-build demo-image.nix
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./result
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```
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Results in a file called c.img
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If in pure mode
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```shell
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nix-build demo-image.nix
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ls -la ./result
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```
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Results in a symlink to the image in the nix store
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Impure/pure mode
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----------------
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Sometimes it can be useful to build the image _outside_ of the Nix sandbox for debugging purposes.
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For this purpose we have an attribute called `impureMode` which outputs the shell script used by Nix inside the sandbox to build the image.
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