nix flakes 4: WSL
Signed-off-by: Xe Iaso <me@christine.website>
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title: "Nix Flakes on WSL"
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date: 2022-05-04
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series: nix-flakes
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tags:
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- nixos
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- wsl
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vod:
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youtube: https://youtu.be/VzQ_NwFJObc
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twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1464781566
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---
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About five years ago, Microsoft released the Windows Subsystem for Linux
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([WSL](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/)). This allows you to run
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Linux programs on a Windows machine. When they released WSL version 2 in 2019,
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this added support for things like Docker and systemd. As a result, this is
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enough to run NixOS on Windows.
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<xeblog-conv name="Mara" mood="hacker">This will give you an environment to run
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Nix and Nix Flakes commands with. You can use this to follow along with this
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series without having to install NixOS on a VM or cloud server.
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</xeblog-conv>
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## Installation
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Head to the NixOS-WSL [releases
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page](https://github.com/nix-community/NixOS-WSL/releases/) and download the
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`nixos-wsl-installer-fixed.tar.gz` file to your Downloads folder.
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Then open Powershell and make a folder called `WSL`:
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```powershell
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New-Item -Path .\WSL -ItemType Directory
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```
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<xeblog-conv name="Mara" mood="hacker">It's worth noting that Powershell does
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have a bunch of aliases for common coreutils commands to the appropriate
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Powershell CMDlets. However these aliases are <b>NOT</b> flag-compatible and use
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the Powershell semantics instead of the semantics of the command it is aliasing.
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This will bite you when you use commands like <code>wget</code> out of instinct
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to download things. In order to avoid your muscle memory betraying you, the
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Powershell CMDlets are shown here in their full overly verbose glory.
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</xeblog-conv>
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Then enter the directory with `Set-Location`:
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```powershell
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Set-Location -Path .\WSL
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```
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<xeblog-conv name="Mara" mood="hacker">This directory is where the NixOS root
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filesystem will live. If you want to put this somewhere else, feel free to.
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Somewhere in `%APPDATA%` will work, just as long as it's on an NTFS volume
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somewhere.
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</xeblog-conv>
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Make a folder for the NixOS filesystem:
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```powershell
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New-Item -Path .\NixOS -ItemType Directory
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```
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Then install the NixOS root image with the `wsl` command:
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```powershell
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wsl --import NixOS .\NixOS\ ..\Downloads\nixos-wsl-installer-fixed.tar.gz --version 2
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```
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And start NixOS once to have it install itself:
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```powershell
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wsl -d NixOS
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```
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Once that finishes, press control-D (or use the `exit` command) to exit out of
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NixOS and restart the WSL virtual machine:
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```powershell
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exit
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wsl --shutdown
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wsl -d NixOS
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```
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And then you have yourself a working NixOS environment! It's very barebones, but
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we can use it to test the `nix run` command against our gohello command:
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```console
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$ nix run github:Xe/gohello
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Hello reader!
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```
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## Local Services
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We can also use this NixOS environment to run a local nginx server. Open
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`/etc/nixos/configuration.nix`:
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```nix
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{ lib, pkgs, config, modulesPath, ... }:
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with lib;
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let
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nixos-wsl = import ./nixos-wsl;
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in
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{
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imports = [
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"${modulesPath}/profiles/minimal.nix"
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nixos-wsl.nixosModules.wsl
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];
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wsl = {
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enable = true;
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automountPath = "/mnt";
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defaultUser = "nixos";
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startMenuLaunchers = true;
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# Enable integration with Docker Desktop (needs to be installed)
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# docker.enable = true;
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};
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# Enable nix flakes
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nix.package = pkgs.nixFlakes;
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nix.extraOptions = ''
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experimental-features = nix-command flakes
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'';
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}
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```
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Right after the `wsl` block, add this nginx configuration to the file:
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```nix
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services.nginx.enable = true;
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services.nginx.virtualHosts."test.local.cetacean.club" = {
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root = "/srv/http/test.local.cetacean.club";
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};
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```
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This will create an nginx configuration that points the domain
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`test.local.cetacean.club` to the contents of the folder `/srv/http/test.local.cetacean.club`.
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<xeblog-conv name="Mara" mood="hacker">The <code>/srv</code> folder is set aside
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for site-specific data, which is code for "do whatever you want with this
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folder". In many cases people make a separate <code>/srv/http</code> folder and
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put each static subdomain in its own folder under that, however I am also told
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that it is idiomatic to put stuff in <code>/var/www</code>. Pick your poison.
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</xeblog-conv>
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Then you can test the web server with the `curl` command:
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```console
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$ curl http://test.local.cetacean.club
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<html>
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<head><title>404 Not Found</title></head>
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<body>
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<center><h1>404 Not Found</h1></center>
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<hr><center>nginx</center>
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</body>
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</html>
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```
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This is good! Nginx is running and since we haven't created the folder with our
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website content yet, this 404 means that it can't find it! Let's create the
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folder so that nginx has permission to it and we can modify things in it:
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```
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sudo mkdir -p /srv/http/test.local.cetacean.club
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sudo chown nixos:nginx /srv/http/test.local.cetacean.club
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```
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Finally we can make an amazing website. Open
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`/srv/http/test.local.cetacean.club/index.html` in nano:
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```
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nano /srv/http/test.local.cetacean.club/index.html
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```
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And paste in this HTML:
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```html
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<title>amazing website xD</title>
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<h1>look at my AMAZING WEBSITE</h1>
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It's so cool *twerks*
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```
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And then you can see it show up with `curl`:
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```console
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$ curl http://test.local.cetacean.club
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<title>amazing website xD</title>
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<h1>look at my AMAZING WEBSITE</h1>
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It's so cool *twerks*
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```
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You can also check this out in a browser by clicking
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[here](http://test.local.cetacean.club):
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## Installing `gohello`
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To install the `gohello` service, first we will need to convert this machine to
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use NixOS flakes. We can do that really quick and easy by adding this file to
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`/etc/nixos/flake.nix`:
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<xeblog-conv name="Mara" mood="happy">Do this as root!</xeblog-conv>
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```nix
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{
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inputs = {
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nixpkgs.url = "nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
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};
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outputs = { self, nixpkgs, ... }: {
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nixosConfigurations.nixos = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
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system = "x86_64-linux";
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modules = [
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./configuration.nix
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# add things here
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];
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};
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};
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}
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```
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Then run `nix flake check` to make sure everything is okay:
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```
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sudo nix flake check /etc/nixos
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```
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And finally activate the new configuration with flakes:
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```
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sudo nixos-rebuild switch
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```
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After it thinks for a bit, you should notice that nothing happened. This is
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good, we have just converted the system over to using Nix flakes instead of the
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classic `nix-channel` rebuild method.
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To get `gohello` in the system, first we need to add `git` to the commands
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available on the system in `configuration.nix`:
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```nix
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environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ git ];
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```
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Then we can add `gohello` to our system flake:
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```nix
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{
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inputs = {
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nixpkgs.url = "nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
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# XXX(Xe): this URL may change for you, such as github:Xe/gohello-http
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gohello.url = "git+https://tulpa.dev/cadey/gohello-http?ref=main";
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};
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outputs = { self, nixpkgs, gohello, ... }: {
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nixosConfigurations.nixos = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
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system = "x86_64-linux";
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modules = [
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./configuration.nix
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# add things here
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gohello.nixosModule
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({ pkgs, ... }: {
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xeserv.services.gohello.enable = true;
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})
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];
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};
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};
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}
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```
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And rebuild the system with `gohello` enabled:
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```
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sudo nixos-rebuild switch
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```
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Finally, poke it with `curl`:
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```console
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$ curl http://gohello.local.cetacean.club
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hello world :)
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```
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To update it, update the flake inputs in `/etc/nixos` and run `nixos-rebuild`:
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```
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sudo nix flake update /etc/nixos
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sudo nixos-rebuild switch
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```
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---
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And from here you can do whatever you want with NixOS. You can use
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[containers](https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/#ch-containers), set up
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arbitrary services, or plan for world domination as normal.
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<xeblog-conv name="Numa" mood="delet">I thought it was "to save the world from
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devastation", not "to plan for world domination". Who needs a monopoly on
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violence for world domination when you have Nix expressions?</xeblog-conv>
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<xeblog-conv name="Cadey" mood="coffee">Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.</xeblog-conv>
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I will use this setup in future posts to make this more accessible and easy to
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hack at without having to have a dedicated NixOS machine laying around.
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