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NixOS Configuration

Configuration and description of my nixos configuration. If you have some nice ideas how to improve, feel free to fork and let me know about your changes or just write me an email.

Also if I am explaining something wrong, please let me know.

Enjoy NixOS!

How I use this config:

% ls -l /etc/nixos
total 8K
drwx------ 3 root root 4096 Feb 13  2011 cfg-private/
drwxr-xr-x 4 cfl  cfl  4096 Jul 16 00:50 cfg-public/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   32 Jan 12  2012 configuration.nix -> cfg-public/configuration-eve.nix

cfg-public is the nixos-configurations repo, cfg-private contains credentials for e.g. postfix smtp delivery.

Hardware

Laptop, Lenovo x201s, Core i7 L640, WXGA+ screen

lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset HECI Controller (rev 06)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82577LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 06)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 06)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio (rev 06)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 06)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev 06)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 06)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev a6)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 5 Series Chipset LPC Interface Controller (rev 06)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 06)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset SMBus Controller (rev 06)
00:1f.6 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset Thermal Subsystem (rev 06)
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 (rev 35)
ff:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture Generic Non-core Registers (rev 02)
ff:00.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture System Address Decoder (rev 02)
ff:02.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Link 0 (rev 02)
ff:02.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Physical 0 (rev 02)
ff:02.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 02)
ff:02.3 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 02)

Software

  • display manager: slim
  • window manager: xmonad
  • mailing: postfix, offlineimap, notmuch, emacs
  • calendar: emacs, orgmode
  • browser: conkeror, firefox, chrome

Dealing with non-NixOS builds

NixOS does not have /usr, instead there are profiles.

You can define environments, and use them to create profiles:

$ nix-env -p $NIX_USER_PROFILE_DIR/py27 -i py27env

The same, but using a wrapper:

$ pnix-env py27 -i py27env

To use the environment, I use another wrapper:

$ py27env python bootstrap.py
$ py27env python ./bin/buildout

It can also be sourced:

$ source ~/bin/py27env

More on this you can find here.

Advantages

  • rollback in case something is broken
  • possibility for having dedicated build environments
  • Packages that search things in /usr still won't work, but you can use one such profile and link it to /usr. However, better would be to patch the offending packages.

FAQ

Q: How can I get a shell in an nix build environment? A: "exit 1" in the corresponding phase + nix-env -K

  1. "exit 1" in the corresponding phase
  2. nix-env -K <package> -> will print the temp dir that is left over

or:

nix-build -K -A emacs23Packages.org /etc/nixos/nixpkgs/default.nix

TODO

  • emacs speedup man pages
  • create config dir in nixos svn and point to github, wait for github migration
  • suspend and hibernate vie Fn-<key>, used to work via awesome mappings
  • (semi-)automatic backup
  • hibernate on very low battery
  • modularize config so generic parts can be reused by others directly
  • grub menu: indicate number of profile used as default, eg. in brackets

Issues

  • iwconfig wlan0 mode ad-hoc (with >3_0?)
  • notmuch asks twice for passphrase, probably something about the gpg-agent
  • sudo does not remember me after system restart, /var/run/sudo is on tmpfs
  • anacron or is it somehow else ensured that commands are run, if powered off at given time
  • collisions in system-environment, priorization?
  • mail (from mailutils) expects /usr/bin/sendmail
  • postfix issues several warnings
  • postfix, received header (Local time zone must be set--see zic manual page)
  • postfix, verify server certificate
  • postfix, check whether it runs chrooted
  • postconf: smtp_sasl_tls_security_options = $var_smtp_sasl_opts ?! manually overwritten

nice to have

  • get pm-suspend-hybrid to work, I think it does hibernate but then only suspends. Good if you forget that your laptop is in suspend for a couple of days. On the other hand, hibernate and resume from it is fast enough. so basically no need for suspend.

  • pm-powersave true|false support?

  • package qbittorrent

  • how could profiles be tested? including then packaged vim plugins, zc.buildouts depending on them, ... Would be great to build a new profile and automatically test it

  • can system profiles be labelled so they show up more meaningful in grub?

  • replace rsyslog with something that buffers and only rarely writes to disk (old, from ubuntu)

  • check sata link, host1 does not like min_power or something sets them to max_performance again (old, from ubuntu)

  • console keymap (alt, ctrl on caps)

  • mail relay should pretend mails coming via submission are locally generated to hide ip of the client sending it (server issue, not nixos related)

  • nix store optimise reports far less savings than achieved:

    [root@eve:~]# df -h

    Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/eve-nixos

    7.9G 5.0G 2.6G 67% /

    none 3.9G 2.0M 3.9G 1% /dev tmpfs 3.9G 0 3.9G 0% /dev/shm none 3.9G 720K 3.9G 1% /var/run /dev/mapper/eve-home 119G 100G 14G 89% /home

    [root@eve:~]# nix-store --optimise skipping suspicious writable file `/nix/store/h531fraz114nyf7bh15aqfdk9nif6j8q-linux-2.6.36.2/lib/modules/2.6.36.2/modules.ccwmap' skipping suspicious writable file `/nix/store/h531fraz114nyf7bh15aqfdk9nif6j8q-linux-2.6.36.2/lib/modules/2.6.36.2/modules.ofmap' skipping suspicious writable file `/nix/store/h531fraz114nyf7bh15aqfdk9nif6j8q-linux-2.6.36.2/lib/modules/2.6.36.2/modules.pcimap' skipping suspicious writable file `/nix/store/h531fraz114nyf7bh15aqfdk9nif6j8q-linux-2.6.36.2/lib/modules/2.6.36.2/modules.seriomap' skipping suspicious writable file `/nix/store/h531fraz114nyf7bh15aqfdk9nif6j8q-linux-2.6.36.2/lib/modules/2.6.36.2/modules.symbols' skipping suspicious writable file `/nix/store/h531fraz114nyf7bh15aqfdk9nif6j8q-linux-2.6.36.2/lib/modules/2.6.36.2/modules.ieee1394map' skipping suspicious writable file `/nix/store/h531fraz114nyf7bh15aqfdk9nif6j8q-linux-2.6.36.2/lib/modules/2.6.36.2/modules.isapnpmap' skipping suspicious writable file `/nix/store/h531fraz114nyf7bh15aqfdk9nif6j8q-linux-2.6.36.2/lib/modules/2.6.36.2/modules.alias' skipping suspicious writable file `/nix/store/h531fraz114nyf7bh15aqfdk9nif6j8q-linux-2.6.36.2/lib/modules/2.6.36.2/modules.inputmap' skipping suspicious writable file `/nix/store/h531fraz114nyf7bh15aqfdk9nif6j8q-linux-2.6.36.2/lib/modules/2.6.36.2/modules.dep' skipping suspicious writable file `/nix/store/h531fraz114nyf7bh15aqfdk9nif6j8q-linux-2.6.36.2/lib/modules/2.6.36.2/modules.usbmap' 816411305 bytes (778.59 MiB, 3690712 blocks) freed by hard-linking 308398 files; there are 308398 files with equal contents out of 404000 files in total

    [root@eve:~]# df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/mapper/eve-nixos

    7.9G 3.2G 4.3G 43% /

    none 3.9G 2.0M 3.9G 1% /dev tmpfs 3.9G 0 3.9G 0% /dev/shm none 3.9G 720K 3.9G 1% /var/run /dev/mapper/eve-home 119G 100G 14G 89% /home

Credits

A big thank you for patient support via irc and mail:

  • Cillian de Róiste
  • Eelco Dolstra
  • Evgeny Egorochkin
  • Lluís Batlle i Rossell
  • Marc Weber
  • Micheal Raskin
  • Nicolas Pierron
  • Peter Simons
  • Vladimír Čunát