nix-config

Config for nixos servers and macbook.

Add a new nixos machine

Log into the machine and run:

• mv /etc/nixos /etc/old_nixos
• nix-shell -p git
• git clone [email protected]:felixzieger/nix-config.git /etc/nixos (use agent forwarding to clone via SSH)
• mkdir hosts/<path-to-new-host-config>
• cp /etc/old_nixos/*.nix hosts/<path-to-new-host-config>
• git add hosts/<path-to-new-host-config>
• add <hostname> config to flake.nix
• nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#<hostname>
• systemctl reboot
• systemctl status
• If everyrhing looks good, clean up via rm -rf /etc/old_nixos

If SSH access has been established write new config in this repo and run:

• nixos-rebuild --target-host felix@address-of-new-host> switch

Switch to new config

Config files for nixos are in /etc/nixos. Switch to config via sudo nixos-rebuild switch.

Config files for mac os are in ~/.nixpkgs. Switch to config via darwin-rebuild switch --flake ~/.nixpkgs .

Update inputs

Update versions in flake.lock via

nix flake update

Debug a service

Use journalctrl to insepct logs.

For example, to check uptime-kuma related logs run

journalctl -u uptime-kuma.service -e

Useful flags are -e for directly show the latest logs or --follow for showing a live stream of logs.

Backups

The flake uses restic to create backups on b2. I followed https://www.arthurkoziel.com/restic-backups-b2-nixos/ and https://francis.begyn.be/blog/nixos-restic-backups for setup.

The restic service creates wrapper scripts for each job. The script is name restic-$job. It will automatically load the environment variables, repository name and password from the service definition.

# Start the service manually to trigger a new backup run
systemctl start restic-$job.service

# Check the ouput for errors
journalctl -u restic-$job.service

For example, to restore the uptime-kuma backup run:

restic-uptime-kuma restore latest --target /

Home Assistant

• For Emfit integration I used https://github.com/jxlarrea/ha-emfitqs by copying it to data dir manually.
• Voice control in German is pretty bad https://community.home-assistant.io/t/whisper-is-really-bad-at-understanding-german-what-can-i-do-about-that/599167/3

Up next

• Impermanence https://lantian.pub/en/article/modify-computer/nixos-impermanence.lantian/
• Nextcloud backup to Schwalbe
• SSO via https://pocket-id.org/
• Get rid of ../../ imports. Have a look at https://github.com/NotAShelf/nyx/ and https://github.com/yomaq/nix-config/
• git mirror; systemd+git, gitea or https://github.com/charmbracelet/soft-serve
• Move ghost to mysql to get rid of date error https://ghost.org/docs/reinstall