Set permissions on file linked with `xdg.configFile`

1

As the title says, I’m linking in a file with xdg.configFile, and need to be able to set permissions on it. How do I do this?

The reasoning here is it’s the accounts file for aerc, which complains if the permissions are too lax (although I’m not storing passwords within).

2

Just discovered you can disable aerc’s check with unsafe-accounts-conf=true, but I’d still like to know how to set the permissions.

3

Maybe what you want is systemd.tmpfiles.rules. Also see systemd tmpfiles - ArchWiki. The syntax is described in man tmpfiles.d.

Example from my config

    systemd.tmpfiles.rules = [
      # enable cache mountpoint for shared access like `/tmp`
      "d! /var/cache 1777 root root - -"
      "d! /keep/etc 0770 root eric - -"
      "d! /keep/etc/nixos 0770 eric eric - -"
      "d! /keep/etc/NetworkManager 0770 root eric - -"
      "d! /keep/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections 0770 root root - -"
      "L+! /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/ - - - - /keep/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/"
    ];
4

Permissions of files in the nix store are always 555 or 444, and home-manager doesn’t provide the option to copy the files with different permissions (like nixos’ environment.etc does).

You could use activation snippets or a systemd oneshot service to run a copy operation, if you really needed specific permissions on a declaratively set-up file.

5

Apologies for the delayed reply, I missed the notifications somehow.

Thanks for the responses. Out of curiosity, is there a reason this is not currently implemented in home-manager or is it just not something people are asking for?