DOTFILES

Overview

This project aims to manage and configure a Linux environment using a combination of Ansible (mainly use for Debian) and Nix. By leveraging Ansible for general system configuration tasks and Nix for package management and reproducible builds, we ensure a robust, declarative setup for linux systems.

Table of Contents

• DOTFILES
  • Overview
  • Table of Contents
  • Getting Started
    • Ansible
      • Prerequisite
      • Configure system
      • Known Limitations
    • Nix
      • Prerequisite
      • Configure system
      • Known Limitations
  • License

Getting Started

In this project, you have the flexibility to use Ansible, Nix, or a combination of both to configure your system. Each tool offers unique strengths, and using them together can provide a comprehensive, powerful approach to managing your environment.

Ansible

Prerequisite

• Python
• Pip package manager required by Ansible
• Ansible, configuration management
• Paramiko for ssh

Configure system

• Copy inventory file

  cp ansible/inventory.example.yml ansible/inventory.yml

• Configure inventory.yml (just example)

  debian: # can use other name
    hosts:
      your_host:
        ansible_host: 192.168.1.100 # better set static IP address
        ansible_user: user
        ansible_become_pass: password
        connection: ssh
        ansible_ssh_pass: password

• Option 1, Run specific task

  ansible-playbook ansible/playbooks/_handler.yml \
    -i ansible/inventory.yml \
    -e task_file="ansible/tasks/tools/neovim/setup-common.yml" \
    -e '{"is_remove": false}'

• Option 2, Run specific playbook for specific system

  # run by default using ssh
  ansible-playbook ansible/playbooks/debian.yml \
    -i ansible/inventory.yml \
    -e '{"is_remove": false}'
  
  # or run ansible against localhost
  ansible-playbook ansible/playbooks/nixos.yml \
    -i ansible/inventory.yml \
    -e _hosts="localhost" \
    -e _connection="local" \
    -e '{"is_remove": false}'

Known Limitations

• Ansible task currently not support for reading current path from task file, only accessible from playbook_dir. Workaround for this is using root of this project as workdir variable that passed to all task-file.
• It's not as robust as nix, installation and deletion sometime break
• Linter sometime giving false positive message (some cases with path/directory related problem).
• PATH in shell often not updated while using ssh, so better develop using ssh for testing.

Nix

Prerequisite

• Nix Package Manager limited to home-manager configuration
• Home Manager managing user specific setting
• NixOS (Optional) can fully configured with the configuration

Note: Example can be seen in Nix Readme

Configure system

• Move into nix

  cd nix

• Example to configure NixOS (hostname=vbox)

  sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#vbox

• Example configure Home-Manager (username=demo,hostname=vbox)

  home-manager switch --flake .#demo@vbox

Stow

Prerequisite

• GNU Stow

Load configuration

stow -t ~/ stow

Known Limitations

• Challenging to setup programming language development environment (sometime need to take a look to project like npm2nix, poetry2nix, etc)
• Nix mostly use symlink, which is difficult for binding into containerized apps (docker, dev-container)

License

MIT