Using your own kexec image

By default, nixos-anywhere downloads the kexec image from the NixOS images repository.

However, you can provide your own kexec image file if you need to use a different one. This is particularly useful for architectures other than x86_64 and aarch64, since they don't have a pre-build image.

To do this, use the --kexec command line switch followed by the path to your image file. The image will be uploaded prior to execution.

Here's an example command that demonstrates how to use a custom kexec image with nixos-anywhere:

nix run github:nix-community/nixos-anywhere -- \
  --kexec "$(nix build --print-out-paths github:nix-community/nixos-images#packages.aarch64-linux.kexec-installer-nixos-unstable-noninteractive)/nixos-kexec-installer-noninteractive-aarch64-linux.tar.gz" \
  --flake 'github:your-user/your-repo#your-system' \
  root@yourip

Make sure to replace github:your-user/your-repo#your-system with the appropriate Flake URL representing your NixOS configuration.

The example above assumes that your local machine can build for aarch64 in one of the following ways:

• Natively

• Through a remote builder

• By emulating the architecture with qemu using the following NixOS configuration:

{
  boot.binfmt.emulatedSystems = [ "aarch64-linux" ];
}