Installation

Install Nix (Linux and macOS) via one of the following installers

1.) Official Installer

The following will install single-user on Linux and multi-user on macOS:

sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install)

To install multi-user on Linux:

sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install) --daemon

Enable Flakes by creating a file in ~/.config/nix/nix.conf and adding the following:

experimental-features = nix-command flakes

2.) Determinate Systems Installer

The following will install Nix on either Linux or macOS:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf -L https://install.determinate.systems/nix | sh -s -- install

Flakes should already be enabled after install with this method

Clone Repo

nix-shell -P git # If you need access to git
git clone git@github.com:fmoda3/nix-configs.git ~/.nix-configs

Build Flake

Substitute personal-laptop for current machine's configuration

On Darwin:

cd ~/.nix-configs
nix build ".#darwinConfigurations.personal-laptop.system"
./result/sw/bin/darwin-rebuild switch --flake ".#personal-laptop"

On NixOS:

cd ~/.nix-configs
nix build ".#nixosConfigurations.personal-laptop.system"
sudo ./result/sw/bin/nixos-rebuild switch --flake ".#personal-laptop"

Updating

Updating flake.lock

If the flake.lock needs to be updated:

nix flake update

Rebuilding and Switching

To rebuild after making changes:

On Darwin

darwin-rebuild build --flake ".#personal-laptop"
darwin-rebuild switch --flake ".#personal-laptop"

On NixOS:

sudo nixos-rebuild build --flake ".#personal-laptop"
sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake ".#personal-laptop"

Creating new configurations

1. Create a new folder in the hosts folder with the name of the configuration.
2. Inside that folder, create a configuration.nix with a NixOS or Darwin config, and a home.nix with a home manager config.
3. Add a new configuration to either the nixosConfigurations or darwinConfigurations block of the flake.nix, specifying the system type, host (the name of the folder from step 1), and user (to install the home manager config to).

Using Images

Building a disk image

Substitute bootable-x86_64-iso for the image configuration you want to build

nix build ".#images.bootable-x86_64-iso"

Specific Images

cicucci-builder-iso

This image builds a bootable iso, that boots into a standard NixOS installation, with a script that installs the cicucci-builder nixos system configuration to the disk.

1. Build the iso via

   nix build ".#images.cicucci-builder-iso"

2. Boot the iso on new machine (either a VM, or burn to usb drive and boot from it on a physical machine)
3. After the terminal prompt appears, run

   sudo install-system

   This will partition and mount the drive using the Disko config in the cicucci-builder configuration, and then install the cicucci-builder configuration itself.
4. Once complete, sudo reboot to boot into the freshly installed system.
5. To make updates after install, clone this repo, and follow the updating steps above.

cicucci-builder-vm

This image builds the cicucci-builder configuration directly into a vmware image. After building, the image can be booted from vmware.

cicucci-dns-sd

This image builds a bootable sd image, that boots directly into a system with the cicucci-dns configuration. This configuration is intended to be used on a Raspberry Pi 3.

1. Build sd via

   nix build ".#images.cicucci-dns-sd"

2. Burn sd image to an sd card using a sd burning utility of your choice.
3. Boot Raspberry Pi directly from sd. The cicucci-dns system will already be installed.

Note that the sd image doesn't have a Disko config and therefore doesn't do any partition or mounting. This is because the base NixOS sd image automatically resizes the base partition to fill the available size of the sd card on first boot.

bootable-x86_64-iso, bootable-aarch64-iso, and bootable-aarch64-sd

These images are general purpose installers, that don't target a specific configuration. They do add a few pieces of my config on top of the base installer that are useful to have, like my zsh configs.

Remote Deployment

I use colmena to deploy the cicucci-dns configuration remotely to my Raspberry Pi. I do this because running nixos-rebuild on the Pi itself is very slow. I deploy from a macOS machine, that is also running a NixOS vm, setup with the cicucci-builder configuration.

Setup

1. Ensure a aarch64-linux machine is available to build. I run an aarch64-linux NixOS vm with the cicucci-builder configuration inside vmware on a aarch64-darwin machine.
2. If the aarch64-linux machine is a remote builder (i.e., not your current machine), ensure that your current machine's root user can ssh into the root user of the remote builder, via ssh key authentication (add your computer's public rsa key into the authorized_keys file of the remote builder)
3. Ensure that the user you are going to deploy from on your current machine can ssh into the root user of the Raspberry Pi, also via ssh key authentication explained above.

Deploy

1. Simply run colmena apply

Using Templates

The templates are for initializing project specific nix flakes into their directories.

Substitute elixir with the template you want in the commands below.

Generate a template into an existing project

nix flake init --template "github:fmoda3/nix-configs#elixir"

Generate a new project with a template

nix flake new --template "github:fmoda3/nix-configs#elixir" ${NEW_PROJECT_DIRECTORY}

Formatting

This flake's formatting is set to use nixpkgs-fmt. Formatting works via

nix fmt

Pre Commit Hooks

This flake uses the pre-commit-hook project run git hooks on commit. Currently, it verifies that the flake is properly linted and formatted before commit.

Devshell

This flake uses the devshell project to easily setup a dev environment when in this project's directory. It adds a few packages to the environment, as well as aliases to format, lint, and build various images.

To enter the devshell without direnv, run

nix develop

If you use direnv, it should become available anytime you are in the directory after running

direnv allow