Devops With Nix tips & practices.

Tutorial successfully combining NixOS & TerraformDev

It would be helpful to

1. formally describe the formats for NIXPATH, and
2. note the allowed angle bracket syntax accordingly

<path> will work with the prefixless format, but not with the prefixed one, and it may be helpful to spell this out explicitly.

0 [14:16:19] nix repl
Welcome to Nix version 2.3.10. Type :? for help.

nix-repl> :l <nixpkgs/doc>  
Added 40 variables.

nix-repl> :l <doc>
error: file 'doc' was not found in the Nix search path (add it using $NIX_PATH or -I)

I always saw a NIXPATH used with the prefix syntax so far:

$ echo $NIX_PATH
nixpkgs=/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos:nixos-config=/etc/nixos/configuration.nix:/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root

but NIX_PATH documentation shows that the prefixless format is also valid.

$ export NIX_PATH=/home/toraritte:/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos

$ printenv NIX_PATH
/home/toraritte:/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos

$ nix repl
Welcome to Nix version 2.3.10. Type :? for help.

nix-repl> :l <nixpkgs>
Added 12439 variables.

This can be written up in many other forms, plus the possibility of currying deserves to be pointed out:

$ nix repl
nix-repl> (sq: (x: y: sq y + sq x) 2 7) (x: x*x)
53

nix-repl> (sq: (x: y: sq y + sq x)) (x: x*x)     
«lambda @ (string):1:11»

nix-repl> (sq: (x: y: sq y + sq x)) (x: x*x) 2
«lambda @ (string):1:14»

nix-repl> (sq: (x: y: sq y + sq x)) (x: x*x) 2 7
53

nix-repl> (sq: x: y: sq y + sq x) (x: x*x) 2 7   
53

There is hnix that is still actively developed (as of 2020/06/21).

It is kind of an anti-pattern using the angle bracket notation and the linked post also makes a suggestion:

{ pkgs ? import (fetchTarball https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/3590f02e7d5760e52072c1a729ee2250b5560746.tar.gz) {};
}:
# ...

It is kind of an anti-pattern using the angle bracket notation and the linked post also makes a suggestion:

{ pkgs ? import (fetchTarball https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/3590f02e7d5760e52072c1a729ee2250b5560746.tar.gz) {};
}:
# ...

It is kind of an anti-pattern using the angle bracket notation and the linked post also makes a suggestion:

{ pkgs ? import (fetchTarball https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/3590f02e7d5760e52072c1a729ee2250b5560746.tar.gz) {};
}:
# ...

What is the difference between the vim and vim_configurable packages?

I believe the source for the latter is here.

If I understood it correctly, take the hardware-configration.nix from the target machine, and put it into the NixOps config.

Also relevant: Minimal NixOS config for Nixops deployment (discourse)

... or list it in environment.systemPackages in /etc/nixos/configuration.nix, and nixos-rebuild switch.

One way (are there others?) to pin Nixpkgs, and ditch channels.

extraUsers have been renamed to users. See related commits.

Got a warning here but it seems to be safe to ignore.

WARNING: Locking directory /run/cryptsetup is missing!

This didn't work out of the box, therefore worth looking at the Arch linux wpa_supplicant docs.

wpa_cli also wouldn't work, and needed to make sure that I had the right SSID so this link is also helpful to list available wifi networks.

On 20.03 install drops users to a non-privileged terminal so sudo su has to be entered to become root. (Otherwise the first steps in "Networking" will fail immediately.)

Saving this here for posterity: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/55191125/cant-seem-to-get-sudo-working-under-nixos

Nix ecosystem introduction ("Talk at my company")

How we use Nix at IOHK?

Last commit that included nightly rust

Generates the configuration.nix on iso build