Nix Flake

Flake for my personal desktop and self-hosted services.
Attempting to view the Flake and its nixos hosts as a single logical unit, rather than trying to manage a collection of multiple computers.

Features

Selfhosting

• Homelab/selfhosting focus with multiple docker and nixos container modules for various servers and services.
• Programmatically configured Dashboard that automatically expands as new hosts are added to the flake. Dashboard monitors host status, the current Nix Flake revision installed on each system, and the current revision on Gitlab.
• Programmatically configured uptime monitoring with Gatus, no matter which host a new service is deployed on, the Gatus server will automatically update its configuration to include the new service - Homepage dashboard also does the same with links to all current services automatically.
• Programmatically configured notifications and monitoring for failed Nixos updates and zfs backups, server and service downtime etc with Ntfy and Gatus.
• Tailscale modules for general VPN access, initrd ssh access, docker and nixos container configuration etc.
• All Flake host networking is heavily reliant on Tailscale, meaning automatic HTTPS certificates for all services, automatic DNS records, controlled Zero Trust access between all devices, no open ports required on any device. Additionally, no reliance on LAN for networking, so I can move any server to any network without any additional configuration required. Tailscale ACL is configured with Pulumi here.

Installation and Updates

• The installation of NixOS is made convenient and consistent through declarative partitioning of disks, and a single install ssh command (+ additional setups if encrypted).
• Github Actions automatically updates the flake.lock weekly and run basic checks on the updates.
• All NixOS systems are set to automatically check for updates every hour, keeping all hosts in sync and identical as possible.

Backups, File Management and Secrets

• Ensures a clean system on every reboot by wiping root (rolling back an empty zfs snapshot), while preserving specified files across reboots.
• The files that are designated to persist are all stored in a single location, enabling automated backups that only include important files.
• Backup server which automatically schedules new backup tasks as additional hosts are added to the flake by default.
• The flake manages the entire system, including secrets.

Flake design

• No more imports that look like ../../../../../../../filename.nix
• No more enabling/disabling custom modules by importing them/not importing them
• All custom modules are joined together into a couple of Flake outputs, which are then ALL imported into the host in bulk.
• Custom modules all have options and are disabled by default. They must be enabled with config.yomaq.moduleName.enable = true
• Host modules (in /modules/hosts) that Nixos and Darwin can share are kept as identical as possible. Module options are shared between them in a default.nix file, while config implementations that differ will be in nixos.nix or darwin.nix respectively.
• All modules are automatically imported into their Flake Outputs without the need to manually list them all. You can simply drop in a new file in /modules/hosts or /modules/home-manager etc, and it will be automatically imported into the correct Flake Output.
• User account flow is still a WIP. I haven't fully decided how I want them to work yet.

Host Status Dashboard

Using the git revision of the flake, you can easily see which hosts are out of date.

Build on NixOS

Install a host that already has configuration:

• boot the host into a nixos installer, and set the root password
• complete the following steps on a different x86_64 machine with nix installed, and sign into 1password
• run the script utilities/nixos-anywhere/remote-install-encrypt.sh HOSTNAME IPADDRESS-OF-TARGET
• let the install complete, then unlock the drive manually (initrd ssh will not work yet)
• hit * to ignore the error after unlocking if needed
• remake the /etc/ssh/initrd host key and rebuild the nixos configuration
• now upon rebooting, the system will have normal behavior and initrd ssh will function

Update the system(rebuild):

nixos-rebuild switch --flake github:yomaq/nix-config

NixDarwin (MacOS) Setup

Install Nix on MacOS:

curl -sSf -L https://install.lix.systems/lix | sh -s -- install

Install Homebrew: https://docs.brew.sh/Installation

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

Build Darwin for the first time (replace midnight with the correct hostname)

nix run nix-darwin -- switch --flake github:yomaq/nix-config#midnight

Repeat the following to update

darwin-rebuild switch --flake github:yomaq/nix-config

ToDo

• Setup WSL ideally with the option to have nix configured GUI applications as well
• Add Nixvirt based VMs
• Test out a self hosted Hydra server
• Add a self hosted Cachix server