Installation finished but doesn't prompt for a root password

[chris-martin]

Installing with Ubuntu 16.04 on Digital Ocean. The output ends with:

building path(s) ‘/nix/store/6729aadyqakgvs8nm1mwdkag78ixqfpk-user-environment’
created 18 symlinks in user environment
writing /nixos/etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix...
warning: not overwriting existing /nixos/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
mount: / is not mountpoint or bad option

       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail or so.
building the system configuration...
copying NixOS/Nixpkgs sources...
finalising the installation...
updating GRUB 2 menu...
installing the GRUB 2 boot loader on /dev/vda...
Installing for i386-pc platform.
Installation finished. No error reported.
setting up /etc...
mount: /dev/pts not mounted or bad option

       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail or so.
mount: /dev/shm not mounted or bad option

       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail or so.

I'm never prompted for a root password. When I connect with the terminal, it looks like the install did succeed, but I can't use it since I never set a root password.

[chris-martin]

Tried again, with Ubuntu 14.04 this time. Similar result:

copying NixOS/Nixpkgs sources...

*** Copying ‘/nix/store/j0g8z80v40zjf1qwq8v2gvpbmsvr5h1v-nixos-16.09.677.0dc31e8’ from ‘/tmp/root/nix/store/j0g8z80v40zjf1qwq8v2gvpbmsvr5h1v-nixos-16.09.677.0dc31e8’

warning: Nix search path entry ‘/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels’ does not exist, ignoring
created 1 symlinks in user environment
finalising the installation...
updating GRUB 2 menu...
installing the GRUB 2 boot loader on /dev/vda...
Installing for i386-pc platform.
Installation finished. No error reported.
setting up /etc...
mount: /dev/pts not mounted or bad option

       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail or so.
mount: mount point /dev/shm is a symbolic link to nowhere
Initializing machine ID from KVM UUID.

[kirikaza]

Is there a workaround for the problem? I cannot just passwd since I probably have to chroot to somewhere beforehand.

[chris-martin]

I don't know, but I switched to nixos-infect which is working.

[jeaye]

I'm able to reproduce this issue; nixos-install is encountering an error while activating the current profile. This is related to a new change in NixOS and I'm currently investigating what it was. In the meantime, hopefully nixos-infect works for you.

[ak5]

Same issue here on my Chinese cloud provider

[rened]

@jeaye Would it be an acceptable work-around to install a previous version of nixos (e.g. 15.09) where installation still works? Updating nixos once it is installed seems to be easy.

I tried to hardcode https://nixos.org/releases/nixos/14.12-small/nixos-14.12.668.7963a45/nixos-minimal-14.12.668.7963a45-x86_64-linux.iso into the script, but that iso seems to be too old: The installation has issues with a grub boot setting, so it does not complete successfully.

[rened]

@chris-martin I believe you tried to use an older iso as well - any luck?

[chris-martin]

That sounds vaguely familiar, but sorry I don't recall.

[jeaye]

@rened, I just merged in #29 a few days ago, which may address this issue. Care to try again?

[rened]

Thanks a lot @jeaye, works like a charm!