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Migrating from Proxmox to NixOS and Incus

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Re: Migrating from Proxmox to NixOS and Incus

#31

Post by h4kunamata »

>By moving to NixOS, my entire infrastructure is defined in text files. This means my AI agents can read, understand, and even safely modify my infrastructure

You lost me there!!

Firstly, NixOS is hype, like everything being moved to Rust and failing miserably.

Secondly, "AI ... can .... safely modify my infrastructure", OP is either being a troll or haven't seem how the whole IT world is upside down because of those very same statements.

Thirdly, "my entire infrastructure is defined in text files", you clearly never heard of Ansible.

All my Proxmox LXC containers from DNS servers, to NGINX firewall aliases feeding OPNSense firewall rules, from Forgejo hosting my repos to PostgreSQL database, from Semaphore running my Ansible playbooks on schedule to *Arr collection, everything is fully infrastructure as code, there is no GUI.

I do not log into Proxmox to deploy my stuff, I enjoy CLI and Ansible makes everything like a walk in the park. I use Proxmox CLI tool "pct" for everything, even snapshots are CLI via "vzdump" and its config file.

My take from that post and comments resume in "hype" "not understanding processes" "seeing problems where there isn't one"

I only run Linux here, even my 3D printer runs Debian Netinst Linux. I am missing something here.

Re: Migrating from Proxmox to NixOS and Incus

#32

Post by pxc »

h4kunamata wrote: post #31

>By moving to NixOS, my entire infrastructure is defined in text files. This means my AI agents can read, understand, and even safely modify my infrastructure You lost me there!! Firstly, NixOS is hype, like everything being moved to Rust and failing miserably. Secondly, "AI ... can .... safely modify my infrastructure", OP is either being a troll or haven't seem how the whole IT world is upside down because of those…

> Firstly, NixOS is hype

NixOS is more than 20 years old, and virtually all of the things that make it compelling were already present a decade ago. If it's not for you, you'll know after you give it a try. But for those for whom it clicks, it's desirable because it just provides a more enjoyable computing experience. It's not more complicated than that.

> Secondly, "AI ... can .... safely modify my infrastructure", OP is either being a troll or haven't seem how the whole IT world is upside down because of those very same statements.

I do lots of Terraform work and some Nix work with LLM agents at my job. Is it worth it to rewrite a huge amount of whatever infrastructure-as-code your LLM agent generates? Hell yes; they generate way too much code and they make lots of mistakes. Are LLM agents still useful for experimentation via infrastructure-as-code? Also yes.

> Thirdly, "my entire infrastructure is defined in text files", you clearly never heard of Ansible.

I've used Ansible and Puppet at previous jobs. They don't manage state in a comparable way to NixOS. It just ain't the vibe. Domen Kozar wrote a decent blog post about the technical differences a decade ago: https://www.domenkozar.com/2014/03/11/why-puppet-chef-ansibl...

But the real reason is that those technical differences add up to a more pleasant experience for NixOS.

In my earlier days as a NixOS user, I used to get really excited with its design and how cool it is, and the neat technical properties that fall out of that (atomic upgrades! rollbacks! (and no filesystem snapshotting needed!)). I still think those things are awesome. But at the risk of feeding into your impression that "NixOS is hype", I've learned since then that the better pitch is about the subjectivity of using it: it feels good to use because experimentation is extremely cheap, reversible, transparent, and... fun. If you know, you know.

Re: Migrating from Proxmox to NixOS and Incus

#33

Post by h4kunamata »

pxc wrote: post #32
h4kunamata wrote: post #31

>By moving to NixOS, my entire infrastructure is defined in text files. This means my AI agents can read, understand, and even safely modify my infrastructure You lost me there!! Firstly, NixOS is hype, like everything being moved to Rust and failing miserably. Secondly, "AI ... can .... safely modify my infrastructure", OP is either being a troll or haven't seem how the whole IT world is upside down because of those…

> Firstly, NixOS is hype NixOS is more than 20 years old, and virtually all of the things that make it compelling were already present a decade ago. If it's not for you, you'll know after you give it a try. But for those for whom it clicks, it's desirable because it just provides a more enjoyable computing experience. It's not more complicated than that. > Secondly, "AI ... can .... safely modify my infrastructure",…

>NixOS is more than 20 years old, and virtually all of the things that make it compelling were already present a decade ago

20 years???

NixOS mention only started this year, I have been working in IT for the past 20 years, from e-commerce to banking and airline companies, I have never ever heard of NixOS.

Not until "social media influencers" started flooding YouTube with it this year.

We must be living in a completely different world then.

Re: Migrating from Proxmox to NixOS and Incus

#36

Post by gnabgib »

h4kunamata wrote: post #34
HackerThemAll wrote: post #28

The amount of b.s. in this article is staggering.

I agree!!! The "my entire infrastructure is defined in text files" alone tells OP never hear of Ansible.

So how are you reading this sentence?

> While you can automate it with Terraform or Ansible, it..

Re: Migrating from Proxmox to NixOS and Incus

#37

Post by h4kunamata »

whalesalad wrote: post #12

I haven't abandoned Proxmox yet, but the take here resonates with me. I do not like configuring appliances. I prefer defining infra as code, having that diffable, assertable, etc. I have had pretty good luck managing Proxmox clusters with the Proxmox API ( https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/api-viewer/index.html ) or just letting the agent shell in as root (lol). I built a very simple provisioning tool called vmfactory…

>I do not like configuring appliances. I prefer defining infra as code, having that diffable, assertable, etc.

I hardle ever access Proxmox GUI, everything is fully managed via Ansible playbooks, from deploying the LXC containers to updating them, from taking snapshot to syncing stuff to my TrueNAS is done via batching.

>I did abandon TrueNAS, however. It really is a locked-down appliance. Good luck installing custom software on the base OS

The most common mistake people seem to make when it comes to NAS, TrueNAS is a NAS not a Proxmox server.

I see people running dozens if not hundreds of services on UnRaid, one fart and the whole infrastructure, if I can call it that, goes to sh1t.

Re: Migrating from Proxmox to NixOS and Incus

#38

Post by kube-system »

mikestorrent wrote: post #18
redlewel wrote: post #17

I get the advantage of fully declarative systems such as Nix, but everything you do in proxmox via GUI can be done via CLI: https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/#_command_line_interface CLI is first class in proxmox, I use the qm command for managing vms all the time. The networking is also just a file in `/etc/network/interfaces` that I modify with vim as needed.

CLI is dandy but Terraform is even nicer. I run something like ten Proxmox clusters now around the world, and an AI agent can deploy a fully terraformed VM for me, tied into monitoring, asset mgmt, EDR, etc in a few minutes...

I run 20+… and it sure would be nice if Proxmox had a first party terraform provider. I have a lot of stuff I have to do via REST.

Re: Migrating from Proxmox to NixOS and Incus

#39

Post by pxc »

h4kunamata wrote: post #33
pxc wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firstly, NixOS is hype NixOS is more than 20 years old, and virtually all of the things that make it compelling were already present a decade ago. If it's not for you, you'll know after you give it a try. But for those for whom it clicks, it's desirable because it just provides a more enjoyable computing experience. It's not more complicated than that. > Secondly, "AI ... can .... safely modify my infrastructure",…

>NixOS is more than 20 years old, and virtually all of the things that make it compelling were already present a decade ago 20 years??? NixOS mention only started this year, I have been working in IT for the past 20 years, from e-commerce to banking and airline companies, I have never ever heard of NixOS. Not until "social media influencers" started flooding YouTube with it this year. We must be living in a completel…

> We must be living in a completely different world then.

I'm not even a real Nix old-timer, but I've been using NixOS on the job for roles in IT operations and software development for more than 10 years now.

And for a few years before that, I used Nix on a personal basis as a college student.

I'm aware of the rapid growth in user interest, of course; I was there for it!

Re: Migrating from Proxmox to NixOS and Incus

#40

Post by Helmut10001 »

RossBencina wrote: post #25
redlewel wrote: post #17

I get the advantage of fully declarative systems such as Nix, but everything you do in proxmox via GUI can be done via CLI: https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/#_command_line_interface CLI is first class in proxmox, I use the qm command for managing vms all the time. The networking is also just a file in `/etc/network/interfaces` that I modify with vim as needed.

Doing things via the CLI and editing config files doesn't automatically give you reproducability or audit trail. Last time I check etckeeper doesn't work with proxmox either (due to the proxmox FUSE mount in /etc).

I get your point and this is likely also not what you mean, but I am very happy with a simple git tracking approach that I use across Proxmoxes and VMs [1].

[1]: https://du.nkel.dev/blog/2026-05-16_rootless_docker_virtiofs...

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