Introduction

Flake based nixos configuration. Intended as a private config, so it is not abstracted to bootstrap any other system than my own.

Setup

Servers (Hetzner)

Provisioning is automated via nixos-anywhere and a kexec installer:

nix develop -c deploy-hetzner-server <hostname>

The script loads the installer, extracts the host's age key, re-encrypts the sops secrets, and installs the configuration (see packages/scripts/deploy-hetzner-server.sh).

Desktops / laptops (manual install)

1. Acquire a NixOS installer image:

   # download nixos-unstable
   wget -O nixos.iso https://channels.nixos.org/nixos-unstable/latest-gnome-minimal-x86_64-linux.iso
   
   # Write to usb drive
   cp nixos.iso /dev/sdX

2. Boot the installer.

3. Define partitions and mount your root to /mnt.

4. Install this config:

   nix-shell -p git nix
   
   git clone https://github.com/brianmcgillion/dotfiles /etc/dotfiles
   cd /etc/dotfiles
   
   # Set HOST: the hostname for the new system
   HOST=...
   
   # Create the host config and add it to the repo:
   mkdir -p hosts/$HOST
   nixos-generate-config --root /mnt --dir /etc/dotfiles/hosts/$HOST
   rm -f hosts/$HOST/configuration.nix
   
   # Merge the generated hardware config into hosts/$HOST/default.nix,
   # import a profile (profile-client or profile-server) and enable features.
   nano hosts/$HOST/default.nix
   
   # Register the host in hosts/default.nix: add host-$HOST to
   # flake.nixosModules and $HOST to the genAttrs host list.
   nano hosts/default.nix
   
   git add hosts/$HOST hosts/default.nix
   
   # Install NixOS
   nixos-install --flake ".#$HOST" --extra-experimental-features 'nix-command flakes'
   
   # Then move the dotfiles to the mounted drive!
   mv /etc/dotfiles /mnt/etc/dotfiles

5. Then reboot to a built system.

See ARCHITECTURE.md for the full "Adding a New Host" walkthrough.

Update

nix flake update
sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#MACHINE_NAME