Disko

NixOS is a Linux distribution where everything is described as code, with one exception: during installation, the disk partitioning and formatting are manual steps. disko aims to correct this.

Usage

A simple disko configuration may look like this:

{
  disko.devices = {
    disk = {
      my-disk = {
        device = "/dev/sda";
        type = "disk";
        content = {
          type = "gpt";
          partitions = {
            ESP = {
              type = "EF00";
              size = "500M";
              content = {
                type = "filesystem";
                format = "vfat";
                mountpoint = "/boot";
                mountOptions = [ "umask=0077" ];
              };
            };
            root = {
              size = "100%";
              content = {
                type = "filesystem";
                format = "ext4";
                mountpoint = "/";
              };
            };
          };
        };
      };
    };
  };
}

If you’d saved this configuration in /tmp/disk-config.nix, and wanted to create a disk named /dev/sda, you would run the following command to partition, format and mount the disk.

sudo nix --experimental-features "nix-command flakes" run github:nix-community/disko/latest -- --mode destroy,format,mount /tmp/disk-config.nix