60 lines
3 KiB
Markdown
60 lines
3 KiB
Markdown
# What happens during a system switch? {#sec-switching-systems}
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Running `nixos-rebuild switch` is one of the more common tasks under NixOS.
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This chapter explains some of the internals of this command to make it simpler
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for new module developers to configure their units correctly and to make it
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easier to understand what is happening and why for curious administrators.
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`nixos-rebuild`, like many deployment solutions, calls `switch-to-configuration`
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which resides in a NixOS system at `$out/bin/switch-to-configuration`. The
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script is called with the action that is to be performed like `switch`, `test`,
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`boot`. There is also the `dry-activate` action which does not really perform
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the actions but rather prints what it would do if you called it with `test`.
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This feature can be used to check what service states would be changed if the
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configuration was switched to.
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If the action is `switch` or `boot`, the bootloader is updated first so the
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configuration will be the next one to boot. Unless `NIXOS_NO_SYNC` is set to
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`1`, `/nix/store` is synced to disk.
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If the action is `switch` or `test`, the currently running system is inspected
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and the actions to switch to the new system are calculated. This process takes
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two data sources into account: `/etc/fstab` and the current systemd status.
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Mounts and swaps are read from `/etc/fstab` and the corresponding actions are
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generated. If the options of a mount are modified, for example, the proper `.mount`
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unit is reloaded (or restarted if anything else changed and it's neither the root
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mount or the nix store). The current systemd state is inspected, the difference
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between the current system and the desired configuration is calculated and
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actions are generated to get to this state. There are a lot of nuances that can
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be controlled by the units which are explained here.
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After calculating what should be done, the actions are carried out. The order
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of actions is always the same:
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- Stop units (`systemctl stop`)
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- Run activation script (`$out/activate`)
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- See if the activation script requested more units to restart
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- Restart systemd if needed (`systemd daemon-reexec`)
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- Forget about the failed state of units (`systemctl reset-failed`)
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- Reload systemd (`systemctl daemon-reload`)
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- Reload systemd user instances (`systemctl --user daemon-reload`)
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- Reactivate sysinit (`systemctl restart sysinit-reactivation.target`)
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- Reload units (`systemctl reload`)
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- Restart units (`systemctl restart`)
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- Start units (`systemctl start`)
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- Inspect what changed during these actions and print units that failed and
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that were newly started
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By default, some units are filtered from the outputs to make it less spammy.
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This can be disabled for development or testing by setting the environment variable
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`STC_DISPLAY_ALL_UNITS=1`
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Most of these actions are either self-explaining but some of them have to do
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with our units or the activation script. For this reason, these topics are
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explained in the next sections.
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```{=include=} sections
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unit-handling.section.md
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activation-script.section.md
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non-switchable-systems.section.md
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etc-overlay.section.md
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```
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