Nixos Module and Nixpkgs Package

[chris2fr]

What type of request is this?

New feature idea

Clear and concise description of the feature you are proposing

I m working on a nix package and nixos module.

I use it on sync-in.gv.je

It is a lot.of work

There are needs for:

Setting the envitonment.yaml file as a paramétrer.

Setting the run folder, such as in /var/run/sync-in/ without needing to mix module files and configuration files and without need for relative paths in the source to runtime files.

I can't really use npx and stick to node and npm

Validations

• Check the feature is not already implemented in the project.
• Check that there isn't already an issue that request the same feature to avoid creating a duplicate.
• Check that the feature is technically feasible and aligns with the project's goals.

[7185]

Hey @chris2fr,

Thanks a lot for the massive work on this! Translating all our config to a Nix module is really impressive.

After chatting internally, we've decided not to merge this upstream. None of us on the core team use Nix, so we're worried about the maintenance burden if the build breaks later on. Also, since your package.nix uses fetchFromGitHub to pull the release, this is actually perfectly set up to be its own standalone repo (similar to how community YunoHost packages work).

We think the best approach is for you to host it in your own repo for now (I think that nix files should be at the root level of the repo and the README can be improved). We'd gladly add a link to it in our official README/docs to point Nix users your way.
If the package gains some traction over time, we'd be totally open to migrating the repository under the official Sync-in GitHub organization later on and setting you up as the core maintainer for it.

Thanks again for the effort!

[chris2fr]

Yea, sure. Your support is important.

I improved by including more documentation.

There are a few things that you can do to improve nix compatibility. The main constraint with nix is that there is a read-only area. We need the read-only be really be read-only.

I would like therefor to introduce a concept of run directory in addition to the data directory different from the source directory. As things stand, the source directory kinda needs to be read-write.

SOURCE_DIR=
/nix/store/298rfiuqwhfkfhf....2i39u3urow/sync-in-server-v0.5.5-slkafjq2rw/{bin,lib,share,static,node_modules,...}

RUN_DIR=/var/run/sync-in-server/{drizzle.js,environment,environment.yaml,and anything that needs to be written in the src directory, but souldn't}

DATA_DIR=/var/lib/sync-in-server/{users,...}

The main problem has to do with the NPX scripts. The run and source dirs and even data dir seem to kinda need to be nearby.

Can we do this ?

Otherwise, I guess I will commit to nix-pkgs ... I improved the module.nix with descriptions. A better README.nix to follow.

https://github.com/chris2fr/sync-in-server/tree/main/scripts/nix

[chris2fr]

NixOS/nixpkgs#512830