• Nirvati
  • Installation
    • Prepare the drive(s)
    • Primary drive
    • Secondary Drive
  • Post-installation
  • Commands
    • Kubernetes Status
    • Longhorn Status

§Nirvati

Guide to install Nirvati on a x86 pc. Since Nirvati is not offering an installation image to install the OS as in a regular Linux distribution, then this guide will help you install Nirvati directly on a drive.

Applicable to Nirvati 0.4.0, as of October 2025

§Installation

Download from:

https://nirvati.org/install

1. Hardware platform: x86_64 UEFI (Intel/AMD) systems
2. Base system: K3S
3. Storage: Advanced Storage Layer
4. Disk: Separate disk
5. Download image

§Prepare the drive(s)

Connect the drive(s) to another pc by usb.

1. First, decompress the image:

xz -vdk nirvati-os-006921a.img.xz

# -vdk: v is for verbose to see the progress, d is to decompress and k is to keep the compressed input file otherwise it deletes it.

§Primary drive

1. Identify your drive:

lsblk
# or
sudo fdisk -l

Note: If using USB adapters, your drives may appear as /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, etc. Internal SATA drives are typically /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, etc. NVMe drives appear as /dev/nvme0n1, /dev/nvme1n1, etc.

2. Unmount (if mounted) any mounted partitions on the SSD:

sudo umount /dev/sdX*  # Replace X with your drive letter

WARNING: The following commands will PERMANENTLY ERASE all data on the target drives. Double-check drive identifications before proceeding!

3. Write the image:

sudo dd if=nirvati-os-006921a.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress
# Replace X with your drive letter

4. Sync to ensure everything is written:

sync

§Secondary Drive

1. Identify your data drive:

lsblk
# or
sudo fdisk -l

WARNING: The following commands will PERMANENTLY ERASE all data on the target drives. Double-check drive identifications before proceeding!

2. Unmount (if mounted) any mounted partitions on the secondary drive:

sudo umount /dev/sdX*  # Replace X with your drive letter

3. Create a partition table:

sudo fdisk /dev/sdX  # Replace X with your drive letter

In fdisk:

• Type g (create GPT partition table)
• Type n (new partition)
• Press Enter for default values (uses whole drive)
• Type w (write changes)

4. Format with ext4 filesystem:

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdX1  # Note the "1" - it's the first partition

5. Add a label (optional but helpful):

sudo e2label /dev/sdX1 "Data"

§Post-installation

1. Connect the drives back in the pc.
2. Start up the device and wait until it boots and adjusts everything on its own.
3. Wait until it has finished booting and take note of the ip address that it’s shown.
4. Type the ip address to the browser of another pc in the same LAN network.

§Commands

Useful commands when ssh in the Nirvati pc.

To connect with ssh from another computer in the same LAN:

ssh root@<ip-address>
password: freedom

§Kubernetes Status

Check cluster status:

kubectl cluster-info
kubectl get nodes
kubectl get pods --all-namespaces

Check specific services:

kubectl get services --all-namespaces
kubectl get deployments --all-namespaces

§Longhorn Status

Check Longhorn pods and services:

kubectl get pods -n longhorn-system
kubectl get services -n longhorn-system
kubectl get daemonset -n longhorn-system

Check Longhorn volumes and storage:

kubectl get pv
kubectl get pvc --all-namespaces
kubectl get storageclass