Support installing Nix on macOS on AWS EC2, without requiring a manual full-disk-access approval #1210
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cole-h
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Sep 30, 2024
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This PR adds a flag to the installer for macOS that allows installing and using Nix on EC2 without a manual process of enabling full disk access. On EC2, macOS requires the user to grant Full Disk Access to the Nix daemon or determinate-nixd for it to function. However, the actual permission issue is access to removable volumes. Users can provide a macOS policy (via MDM or manually) that allows access to removable volumes, but this also requires a manual setup process. The key insight of this pull request is that by using the internal hard disk, we escape the "removable volume" limitation. This PR's new flag sets the default root disk target to use the internal disk, instead of the disk that macOS is running from. Note that this is feature-locked to determinate-nixd, because determinate-nixd accounts for a quirk of AWS's macOS deployment. AWS's macOS infrastructure assumes all internal disks are unmounted, and will occasionally unmount the Nix Store.
Flake lock file updates:
• Updated input 'determinate':
'https://api.flakehub.com/f/pinned/DeterminateSystems/determinate/0.1.110%2Brev-cb916a7dd1b85d547edd6ba2f782a578ca4ef480/01923596-e372-7668-a456-5b32177e0dda/source.tar.gz?narHash=sha256-M9Z7OMrQHAmZQnuMYxdyqzV%2B7ApIXVbA2GXl62l1GTo%3D' (2024-09-27)
→ 'https://api.flakehub.com/f/pinned/DeterminateSystems/determinate/0.1.136%2Brev-ec5f982bd53acbece1c3a72a0dbf074ab5d79e10/019244a6-0aa7-72b5-9d85-a7bb7885aad3/source.tar.gz?narHash=sha256-sSGQJP7isahkRAzlOiLJjvoz/MijCsoFa6FgQIqbcFE%3D' (2024-09-30)
• Updated input 'determinate/determinate-nixd-aarch64-darwin':
'https://install.determinate.systems/determinate-nixd/rev/2c18a8f38492d35be64d4e497b720938f17cc9f5/macOS?narHash=sha256-tmW%2BSqn9cautArLTych0mnKXD1abtaAuJGCUCrtUmeo%3D'
→ 'https://install.determinate.systems/determinate-nixd/rev/51ecec5a3148baef87c2015536aa12dd18e4c4ad/macOS?narHash=sha256-OhG8joS/uN3Kdw4h9w8F/6ZIVTFZ8J9Fb4NGn/KK5/s%3D'
• Updated input 'determinate/determinate-nixd-aarch64-linux':
'https://install.determinate.systems/determinate-nixd/rev/2c18a8f38492d35be64d4e497b720938f17cc9f5/aarch64-linux?narHash=sha256-z5dg%2BqwLOjA4pjiCLReESa9qNYOtMxlaPXQQWNhEymA%3D'
→ 'https://install.determinate.systems/determinate-nixd/rev/51ecec5a3148baef87c2015536aa12dd18e4c4ad/aarch64-linux?narHash=sha256-AGcHQSIdb%2BKEJlhJzMB4YyFxbjdLZEDDf6bv6Zi3wqM%3D'
• Updated input 'determinate/determinate-nixd-x86_64-linux':
'https://install.determinate.systems/determinate-nixd/rev/2c18a8f38492d35be64d4e497b720938f17cc9f5/x86_64-linux?narHash=sha256-8sENexNuv7gsVAeQx1xuJd8IQtociheylIeEjFRYbQI%3D'
→ 'https://install.determinate.systems/determinate-nixd/rev/51ecec5a3148baef87c2015536aa12dd18e4c4ad/x86_64-linux?narHash=sha256-kU4dqHoYe3sFf4LDAUj4fyl9uGV8IHtE22%2BDdMeRN0s%3D'
• Updated input 'nixpkgs':
'https://api.flakehub.com/f/pinned/NixOS/nixpkgs/0.1.685764%2Brev-1925c603f17fc89f4c8f6bf6f631a802ad85d784/01923479-4bef-7480-a7b0-72f6d33a5318/source.tar.gz?narHash=sha256-J%2BPeFKSDV%2BpHL7ukkfpVzCOO7mBSrrpJ3svwBFABbhI%3D' (2024-09-26)
→ 'https://api.flakehub.com/f/pinned/NixOS/nixpkgs/0.1.687049%2Brev-06cf0e1da4208d3766d898b7fdab6513366d45b9/019243b7-0a9f-79f7-b57a-4e0cfd13a578/source.tar.gz?narHash=sha256-S5kVU7U82LfpEukbn/ihcyNt2%2BEvG7Z5unsKW9H/yFA%3D' (2024-09-29)
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colemickens
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Oct 1, 2024
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Description
(wip, not yet functional, needs a dnixd update)
This PR adds a flag to the installer for macOS that allows installing and using Nix on EC2 without a manual process of enabling full disk access.
On EC2, macOS requires the user to grant Full Disk Access to the Nix daemon or determinate-nixd for it to function. However, the actual permission issue is access to removable volumes. Users can provide a macOS policy (via MDM or manually) that allows access to removable volumes, but this also requires a manual setup process.
The key insight of this pull request is that by using the internal hard disk, we escape the "removable volume" limitation.
This PR's new flag sets the default root disk target to use the internal disk, instead of the disk that macOS is running from. Note that this is feature-locked to determinate-nixd, because determinate-nixd accounts for a quirk of AWS's macOS deployment. AWS's macOS infrastructure assumes all internal disks are unmounted, and will occasionally unmount the Nix Store.
Checklist
cargo fmtnix buildnix flake checkValidating with
install.determinate.systemsIf a maintainer has added the
upload to s3label to this PR, it will become available for installation viainstall.determinate.systems: