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nixos-server

pipeline status

Introduction

This repository serves as a template for NixOS server configurations. It can either be directly used by cloning and installing it on a server, or by building and using images and deploy them on e.g. AWS. Alternatively, you can also build an live-ISO file and run it as a temporary playground or use the images for persistant VMs.

Pre-configured users

The pre-configured users all have no password and can only be accessed via SSH. Make sure to add a public key.

  • sirius (default user)
  • root

Pre-configured packages

  • Docker (non root)
  • firewall (open ports: 22)
  • fonts and i18n (german keyboard layout)
  • cloudflare DNS
  • catppuccin theme
  • neovim
  • bash, zsh, kitty
  • oh-my-posh
  • git, gh
  • eza, bat, btop, fastfetch, fzf, ripgrep, yazi, zip, unzip, tree, just

Setup

Note

Skip this section if you want to build an ISO or image. You can continue to the Add a public key section.

First, replace the hardware-configuration.nix in /hosts/sirius. You can use the following command:

# Generate hardware configuration if not already done
sudo nixos-generate-config

# Use system specific hardware configuration
sudo cp /etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix hosts/sirius/hardware-configuration.nix

Add a public key

Add you public key in /dots/ssh and edit /hosts/users.nix. You can do this by adding the following entry to one or both arrays:

(builtins.readFile ../dots/ssh/<my_key>.pub)

Configure DNS

The DNS is configured in /modules/dns/cloudflare.nix and registered in /hosts/default.nix.

Build Live-ISO file

Warning

You can build and run the ISO file, however, all changes will be stored in RAM and are not persistent. There is currently no installation process from the iso.

To build an ISO file, run the following command:

just iso

Run Live-ISO file

Note

Edit the justfile to change the resources located to the VM. The default configuration is 8 CPUs and 16GB of RAM. Keep in mind that everything is stored in the RAM so you should allocate enough RAM to the VM.

To run the ISO file, run the following command:

just iso-vm

# Inside of the VM, run: sudo su sirius
# This will switch to the sirius (default non-root user) which also has home-manager configured

Build Raw Images

Note

Images can be run on some cloud providers and on all virtualization software. They are persistent and adjust the storage size dynamically.

You can now also build raw and qcow2 images. These images can be used to run the server on a cloud provider. Changes are persistent and survive reboots.

# Build raw images (file with .img extension)
# This type is allegedly used on most cloud providers
sudo just raw

# Build qcow2 images (file with .qcow2 extension)
sudo just qcow

Run Images

just raw-vm

just qcow-vm

Build Docker Image

Warning

Docker images of this kind should never be used for containers. Containers are meant to be small, lightweight and modular which also means one container per service. An entire OS in a container is a bad practice and should be avoided. Furthermore, containers created from this image need to be run in privileged mode which is a security risk.

It is also possible to create a docker image. However, there is a lot of overhead and docker e.g. woudln't work. For the sake of completeness, here is how to create a docker image:

nix run github:nix-community/nixos-generators -- \
    --format docker \
    --flake .#siriusDocker \
    -o result

# Copy the tarball to the root directory
sudo cp result/tarball/*.tar.xz nixos.tar.xz

Before you can do anything meaningful, you should remove the following files. This step is not necessary as it would also spin to life without it, however, some of these features are obsolete or not working at all.

  • /modules/docker.nix
  • /modules/catppuccin.nix
  • /modules/dns
  • /home/git.nix
  • /hosts/fonts.nix
  • /hosts/shell.nix
  • /hosts/i18n.nix
  • ...

Run Docker Image

docker import nixos.tar.xz nixos-server:latest
docker run --privileged -it -p 2222:22 --rm nixos-server:latest /init

You can connect to the docker container via one of the following methods:

docker exec -it $(docker ps | grep nixos-server:latest | awk '{ print $1 }') /run/current-system/sw/bin/bash

# SSH requires one to open the port 22
ssh -o StrictHostKeychecking=no -p 2222 sirius@localhost

SSH might take a few tens of seconds to start up. Be patient when using that method.