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Category:Virtualization

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This category page exists to list resources related to virtualisation in the Nix ecosystem.

Overview

You can use the following technologies for classic virtualisation on NixOS. You can also use containers, though they come with their own advantages and drawbacks.

Installing a hypervisor on the host system.
Hypervisor Code snippet to be added to configuration.nix
QEMU/KVM
❄︎ configuration.nix
{
  virtualisation.libvirtd.enable = true;

  # if you use libvirtd on a desktop environment
  programs.virt-manager.enable = true; # can be used to manage non-local hosts as well
}
Xen Project Hypervisor
❄︎ configuration.nix
{
  virtualisation.xen.enable = true;
}
VirtualBox
❄︎ configuration.nix
{
  virtualisation.virtualbox.host.enable = true;
  users.extraGroups.vboxusers.members = [ "username" ];
  
  # Non-free Extension Pack
  nixpkgs.config.allowUnfree = true;
  virtualisation.virtualbox.host.enableExtensionPack = true;
}
VMware
❄︎ configuration.nix
{
  virtualisation.vmware.host.enable = true;
}
Installing the appropriate guest utilities on a virtualised system.
Hypervisor the guest is running on Code snippet to be added to the guest's configuration.nix
QEMU/KVM
≡︎ 
{
  services.qemuGuest.enable = true;
  services.spice-vdagentd.enable = true;
}
VirtualBox
❄︎ configuration.nix
{
  virtualisation.virtualbox.guest.enable = true;
  virtualisation.virtualbox.guest.x11 = true;
}
VMware
❄︎ configuration.nix
{
  services.xserver.videoDrivers = [ "vmware" ];
  virtualisation.vmware.guest.enable = true;
}
microvm.nix Consult the MicroVM.nix documentation