Deploy an etc configuration file with NixOps

1

Do you know how to send a configuration file with NixOps ?

I thought that in the deployment section I could write something like

environment.etc.<path>.source = <local_path>
2

I tried

{
  network.description = "foo network";
  ...
  # first EC2 instance
  ecc1 { resources, pkgs, ... }:
  {
      let
      customFile = pkgs.writeTextFile {
         name = "custom.conf";
         text = "foo";
         executable = true;
         destination = "/custom.conf";
      };
    
      in
      ...
      environment.systemPackages = [
        ...
        customFile
      ];
  };
}

It kind of work at first sight, since nixops deploy runs without error, but impossible to find the file in the remote machine (ecc1).

3

Found a solution using activationScripts to perform a copy when the new remote nixos system is activated

    system.activationScripts = {
      mnt = {
        text = "cp ${customFile}/direvent.conf /direvent.conf";
        deps = [];
      };
    };

It is a bit ugly, but it works.

Just for info, adding customFile to the list of systemPackages was completely useless. The corresponding path was not uploaded. It must be a lazy mechanism I guess.

4

Your first one was correct:

{ config, pkgs, ... }:
{
...  
config.environment.etc."demo.test".source = ./factorio.nix;
}

$ ls -l /nix/store/hmzzs4b71l91y2rhw4r237zk4wf91yf1-etc/etc/demo.test
lrwxrwxrwx 2 root root 56 Jan  1  1970 /nix/store/hmzzs4b71l91y2rhw4r237zk4wf91yf1-etc/etc/demo.test -> /nix/store/qajrsljnjpkanycrmz9bcjjjcmq9yzjm-factorio.nix

environment.systemPackages will not change /etc, it’s basically changing the PATH of the system and a couple of other things as well.

1 Like
5

Thanks, I ended with this

{
  network.description = "foo network";
  ...
  # first EC2 instance
  ecc1 { resources, pkgs, ... }:
  {
      environment.etc."direvent.conf".source = ./direvent.conf;
      ...
  };
}

JFYI, trying to deploy

ecc1{ config, resources, pkgs, ... }:{
config.environment.etc.".direvent.conf".source = direvent.conf;
...
...

returns the following error

This is caused by introducing a top-level `config' or `options' attribute. Add configuration attributes immediately on the top level instead, or move all of them (namely: deployment environment networking security services system systemd) into the explicit `config' attribute.
6

I’m doing some “dirty” tricks with config, that’s probably why I have to use it. So it’s fine if you just use environment.etc....