2025-04-09 Clan Weekly Changelog

Announcements
1

Clan is a toolkit that makes it easier to manage networks of VPN-connected NixOS machines.
The ultimate goal is to lower the barrier to self-host services massively to allow anyone to achieve this without special hardware. As of now using clan still requires NixOS knowledge but already nicely combines a bunch of our open-source project that you may know (nixos-anywhere, sops-nix, nixos-generators, disko, …) in a uniform CLI.

Changelog

  • Blog article: Design preview of a clan UI builder: How to Democratise DevOps | Clan @amunsen
  • Add basic support for managing Mac machines with Clan @Enzime
    • clan machines update <machine> is not supported yet
    • clan machines update will ignore Macs
  • Added support for multiple user keys when using SOPS in secrets @brianmcgee
    • PR ready, just working through some build issues with installation test
    • Will tackle age plugin support via SOPS once this is merged
  • NixOS Facter @brianmcgee @Mic92
  • General CI improvements @Mic92
    • Made installation test faster and more stable
    • Remove 50 buildsteps out of (244 - 180), less scheduling
    • More test stability by reducing build workers to (now half the CPU counts)
  • Fixed a performance bug in Nix that when trying to access Nix store path with flakes @Mic92
  • Migrate user-password to vars @Mic92
  • Data Mesher @brianmcgee @pinpox
    • Integration testing with real-world Clans is blocked
      • @pinpox is resolving an issue with zerotier before he can test data-mesher in his personal Clan
      • @brianmcgee is working through extending Clan core to be able to support moving his personal setup to Clan.
        • Blockers are:
          • Multiple keys per user in secrets
          • Age plugins support with secrets (Yubikey)
    • If anyone else wants to give it a stab in the meantime, feel free
  • Migrate ZeroTier to the new clan.services @hsjobeki @Enzime
    • Seems to work so far, now migrating from facts to vars
    • Blocked by vars testing
    • Discovered that ZeroTier is completely untested → testing seems urgent
  • Many small internal refactorings @hsjobeki
    • rename clan-core.lib to clanLib
    • move test folder into clan_cli project @a-kenji, @hsjobeki
    • add inventory as fixture parameter for pytest fixture: ‘flake_with_clan_core’ (empty by default)
  • Inventory additions @hsjobeki
    • started new ‘clan.service’ documentation - This module system will replace the prior ‘clanModules’
    • introduce extendSettings instead of a functor. Downside, settings can only be extended once, but functors are too weird.
    • Init clan/python tests for testing interaction between nix <→ python
    • Trying to fix and extend our nixos testframework to support vars with inventory
  • Migrated all vpn bench modules to the new inventory @Qubasa
    • Made benchmark fallible to support unsupported benchmarks by some VPNs @Qubasa
    • New VPN Clan module Hyprspace!! Can be included remotely too!
  • New ADR init Always Call the Correct Clan Version from Flake Input @Qubasa
  • Inventory test framework is up - example @DavHau

Join us on matrix.

7 Likes