KVM builds (Early Access)

nixbuild.net supports running builds that use KVM, including builds that uses the NixOS integration testing framework.

To make use of this, your derivation must have kvm listed in its requiredSystemFeatures attribute. If a derivation is not marked with kvm, nixbuild.net will not activate KVM support and /dev/kvm will not be available to the build.

Additionally, you must configure your nix client to send kvm builds to nixbuild.net. This is done by adding the kvm tag to the list of system features for the remote builder:

eu.nixbuild.net x86_64-linux - 100 1 big-parallel,benchmark,kvm,nixos-test

Above, we also added the nixos-test feature which is needed if you want to build NixOS integration tests.

KVM builds are only supported on x86_64-linux, not aarch64-linux.

The support for KVM builds in nixbuild.net is a new feature that still is in development and therefore you need to request access to it by contacting [email protected]. During the Early Access period, KVM builds are priced and invoiced exactly the same as standard builds When the KVM support has been finalized and made available to everyone, the pricing and price model might look different.

The KVM support in nixbuild.net was announced in this blog post.