actually bind /dev/kvm into the container, and test it initializes
diff-pr / dix (pull_request) Successful in 6m48s
flake-check / flake-check (pull_request) Successful in 4m39s
lint / lint (pull_request) Successful in 1m47s

DeviceAllow= only grants cgroup permission to open a device node - it
doesn't create one, and nspawn can't mknod a device inside a user
namespace. The node needs an explicit bind from the host as well, so
both are required together.

Also add a test that actually boots qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm
(no disk, killed by timeout) and checks for "Permission denied" /
"Could not access KVM" in its output, rather than just checking the
node opens - a wrong-gid or unmapped node still opens but fails the
ioctls qemu needs.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Dzy7tEKLCFFXD96LmR8we3
This commit is contained in:
Autumn Liu
2026-09-13 20:23:36 -05:00
co-authored by Claude Sonnet 5
parent e8cc76844d
commit a12c18386d
2 changed files with 32 additions and 13 deletions
+14 -8
View File
@@ -222,13 +222,15 @@ rec {
: Bind mounts, keyed by mount point.
`resources.devices`
: Host device nodes to expose, as paths, added to the unit's
`DeviceAllow=`. nspawn populates a handful of privileged devices
(`/dev/kvm`, `/dev/net/tun`, ...) into the container's own `/dev` once
the cgroup allows it, and silently skips ones the host doesn't have -
no `resources.fs` bind mount needed. Nodes keep their host ownership,
so a consumer inside needs `isolation.privateUsers = "identity"` for
the owning gid to mean anything.
: Host device nodes to expose, as paths. Bound into the container at the
same path and added to the unit's `DeviceAllow=` - the cgroup
permission alone doesn't get you a working node (nothing can `mknod` a
device inside a user namespace), and the bind alone leaves the cgroup
denying `open()`, so both are needed. The bind is unconditional, so
the device must actually exist on whatever host runs the container.
Nodes keep their host ownership, so a consumer inside needs
`isolation.privateUsers = "identity"` for the owning gid to mean
anything.
`isolation.nixDaemon`
: Whether the Nix daemon and CLI are available inside the container.
@@ -295,6 +297,10 @@ rec {
+ lib.optionalString useIdmap ":idmap"
) allBindMounts;
bindMountHostPaths = map (bm: bm.hostPath) (lib.attrValues allBindMounts);
# DeviceAllow= alone only grants cgroup permission - nspawn can't
# mknod a device node inside a user namespace, so the node still
# needs an explicit bind from the host.
deviceFlags = map (d: "--bind=${d}") devices;
inherit (deriveIdentity ifPrefix.nspawn name)
iface
mac
@@ -381,7 +387,7 @@ rec {
nixosContainer = {
inherit autoStart privateUsers;
bindMounts = { };
extraFlags = bindMountExtraFlags;
extraFlags = bindMountExtraFlags ++ deviceFlags;
privateNetwork = true;
extraVeths = linkVeths;
config =