You can now run a test in the nixos/tests directory directly using
nix-build, e.g.
$ nix-build '<nixos/tests/login.nix>' -A test
This gets rid of having to add the test to nixos/tests/default.nix.
(Of course, you still need to add it to nixos/release.nix if you want
Hydra to run the test.)
You can now do a fast reboot (bypassing the BIOS, which may take
several minutes on servers) by running ‘systemctl kexec’.
Unfortunately the QEMU test for this is unreliable due to a QEMU bug
(it randomly crashes with a message like ‘Guest moved used index from
8 to 0’), so it's commented out.