Dotfiles w/ Nix and Home Manager

🔔 Read a blog post about this repository

This is my own dotfiles repo and is customized to my own preferences - although I try to keep everything working properly, use any part of this repo on your own system may break things! I'd recommend using this more for inspiration than exact instructions.

Mac

Generate host keys

Run sudo ssh-keygen -A to generate default host keys (rsa, ecdsa, ed25519 according to documentation) if they do not already exist.

Install Nix

Follow the Zero to Nix guide to install Nix on MacOS.

Install Homebrew

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

NixOS

Download and boot the minimal ISO from (unstable version).

Run sudo -i to switch to root, then passwd to set a root password. This enables ssh login (get ip with ip a) to run the rest of the installer via ssh.

Complete partitioning per the NixOS instructions or with Disko.

If using Disko:

1. Create a disko-config.nix file, based on template (or edit ie ./hosts/nixos/<hostname>/disko.nix) and copy to /tmp/disko-config.nix on the target machine
2. Run nix --experimental-features "nix-command flakes" run github:nix-community/disko -- --mode disko /tmp/disko-config.nix to partition and mount the disks.

Once partitoning is complete and the system is mounted to /mnt, we'll deviate from the installer and use flake.nix to install the system.

# Open up a dev shell to get git:
nix-shell

# copy ssh keys over so that we can authenticate with github
# alternatively, may make new keys with ssh-keygen and copy them to github
# not necessary if cloning a public repo
mkdir ~/.ssh
vim ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 # paste private key that is used to authenticate with Github (stored in 1password)
chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

# Create new SSH keys for the system
# when agenix runs, use /etc/agenixKey for initial install
# TODO: fix these instructions (`/mnt/etc` doesn't yet exist)
vim /mnt/etc/agenixKey
chmod 600 /mnt/etc/agenixKey
ln -s /mnt/etc/agenixKey /etc/agenixKey

# IMPORTANT!
# after initial install, rekey secrets with the generated hostKey

# once shell loaded, clone the repo to /tmp/nixos
cd ~ # either root or nixos, depending on who's logged in
git clone https://github.com/josephst/nixfiles.git
cd nixfiles

# OPTIONAL: update flake
nix --experimental-features 'flakes nix-command' flake update

# generate new config (ignore the generated configuration.nix) and copy to this repository
nixos-generate-config --root /mnt # if using disko, also include `--no-filesystems`
mv /mnt/etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix /path/to/this/repo
rm /mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix

# make sure we're in the right directory
cd /mnt/etc/nixos
git add --all # add the new hardware config
git commit -m "update hardware config" # commit it
git push # and push to github

# install
nixos-install --flake .#HOSTNAME

Post-install

Ensure that there's a key for Agenix at /mnt/etc/agenixKey. After the first boot of the system, copy the newly generated host keys to this repo, rekey Agenix, and delete the temporary agenixKey file.

NixOS: after setup

Tailscale

tailscale up --ssh to log in to Tailscale.

Update dynamic DNS records with the tailscale IP to ensure that other devices on the Tailnet can look up the Tailscale IP on public DNS servers

Plex

First time, access at 192.168.1.xxx:32400/web to get it set up, before trying to access via reverse proxy.

Sabnabd

Edit /var/lib/sabnzbd/sabnzbd.ini to allow sabnzbd.nixos.josephstahl.com (under host_whitelist)