Using Parcel with Go Templates

2023-08-28T00:00:00+00:00

When I built my blog engine (of because I build my own blog engine, because where is the fun in using a premade one) I really wanted to try TailwindCSS for the first time.

You can actually use tailwind just by itself, and it works, which is what I did at the start. I later wanted to manage fonts better than just statically serving

${pkgs.jetbrains-mono}/share/fonts/truetype/JetBrainsMono[wght].ttf</code>, so a different solution was needed.</p>

Mounting a nix-store via NFS

2022-08-22T00:00:00+00:00

Lately at $work we wanted to netboot some (NixOS) Computers. Having a full nix-store for each one on some Server seemed wasteful though, so I searched for another solution.

NixOS does not need a full rootfs to boot, it just needs

/nix</code> (and the pseudo file systems like /dev</code>, /proc</code>,...).
All the other directories get generated inside the activation script.</p>

Declarative macOS Configuration Using nix-darwin And home-manager

2022-07-03T00:00:00+00:00

Last december, I bought myself an 14" M1 Pro MacBook Pro after being a linux user for eight years (the last few using NixOS on all my computers/servers and even my router).

Coming from NixOS, I wanted to replicate the godly feeling of declaratively configuring the entire system in every last detail with nix flakes on macOS.

nix-darwin</a> and home-manager</a> are the tools to archive exactly that.

tangent</div> If I didn't knew nix-darwin existed when I needed a new laptop, I would've bought myself a framework. </div>

Why should anybody want to do that</h2>

Reproducibility</li>
My entire configuration is a git repository</a>, on a new computer I just have to `darwin-rebuild</code> to get my it just as I like it.</li>`
`Reusability</li>`
`I can just import my shell/editor/tmux configuration into both my laptop and my servers. Everything feels just like it should</li>`
`The ability to know what I have installed:</li>`
`No 1000 forgotten packages filling up precious storage space</li> </ul> Explanation of the nix ecosystem</h2>`Nix/nixpkgs</h3> Nix is a declarative functional programming language created as part of and for the Nix package manager. In Nix, packages are defined as so called derivations</a>. A derivation is a function with package dependencies and package configuration as its inputs, and a plan on how to build that package as its output. tangent</div> package configuration in the sense of "do you want to build vlc with chromecast support?" (similar to gentoo USE flags) </div> Nix will evaluate that function and build it's output. The output will then be stored in the path /nix/store/${sha256 of the derivation}-${package name}</code> In nixpkgs</a>, the central repository for: most packages</li> a library full of helper functions that make writing nix much more enjoyable</li> and NixOS,</li> </ul> there are helper functions to easily build such a derivation for most programming languages. tangent</div> As the naming of nix/nixpkgs can get confusing: there are: nix (Programming Language), nix (Package manager), nixpkgs (Package Repository), NixOS (Linux Distribution) nix (Programming language) ≠ nix (Package manager). nix (Package Manager) is the only implementation of nix (Programming Language) though. nixpkgs ≠ NixOS, but NixOS ⊂ nixpkgs nixpkgs ≠ nix nix flakes ∈ nix ∧ nix flakes ∉ nixpkgs </div> A simple derivation is the following: { stdenv, gcc, ... }: stdenv.mkDerivation { # stdenv.mkDerivation is a nixpkgs helper function name = "hello-1.0.0"; # Package name # source files for the package # (can also be a git repository, a flake input, ...) src = ./src; # inputs the builder needs to have # (we actually don't have to specify gcc, as a C compiler is part of the stdenv) nativeBuildInputs = [ gcc ]; # tells nix to run gcc buildPhase = '' gcc hello.c -o ./hello ''; # tells nix to copy the binary to the right path installPhase = '' # $out is the output path mkdir -p "$out/bin" cp ./hello "$out/bin/" ''; }</code></pre> tangent</div> in nix, a function definition is function = argument: output</code>. to evaluate a function, you have to function argument</code> </div> In the above file, we define a function with the attribute set (an attribute set is basically an object) { stdenv, gcc, ... }</code> as it's argument and stdenv.mkDerivation {...}</code> as it's output. Our function will then evaluate the function stdenv.mkDerivation</code> with the attribute set after it. mkDerivation</code> creates a derivation out of the attribute set, and nix will build it. tangent</div> the three dots in {stdenv, gcc, ...}</code> mean, that we'll also accept an attribute set with more attributes, those will then be ignored. </div>nix flakes</h3> Normally nix uses so called channels to declare what version of nixpkgs you're running. This is state external to your own package though, and it means you always have to look at multiple places to reproduce your exact configuration somewhere else. To solve this problem, tools like niv</a> and nix-flakes</a> were created. tangent</div> We'll use nix-flakes here, as it's part of nix itself nix-flake is an experimental feature though, so be warned </div> A nix flake consists of two files: flake.nix The file where all external inputs and all outputs of your flake are defined. For example, for a simple C program, your only input will be nixpkgs</code> (as stdenv.mkDerivation</code> and a C compiler are inside there), and your only output will be the derivation of your program. flake.lock A JSON managed by nix itself, where the exact git hash of each of your inputs will be stored. Pretty comparable to how a package.lock</code> works on npm. A sample flake building our little C program would look like this: { description = "My first nix flake"; inputs.nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-23.05"; outputs = { self, nixpkgs }: { # function with our inputs packages.default.aarch64-darwin = let pkgs = import nixpkgs { system = "aarch64-darwin"; }; # gets ourself an instance of nixpkgs in pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation { pname = "hello"; src = ./src; # the stdenv C compiler is at $CC (it's gcc on linux and clang on mac) buildPhase = "$CC -o hello ./hello.c"; installPhase = "mkdir -p $out/bin; install -t $out/bin hello"; }; }; }</code></pre> To build our flake, run nix build .</code> tangent</div> .</code> means the flake at your CWD Important note: if your flake is inside a git repository, nix will ignore uncommited files </div>NixOS</h3> NixOS is a complete linux distribution based on nix. Instead of installing and configuring packages by hand, the complete system configuration is a function with the nixpkgs and your configuration as their inputs and a script to set the new system state (the activation script) as it's output. (the output is more complicated then just the activation script, but we'll ignore that for this post) tangent</div> It dosen't have to be just the activation script though, you can also tell nix to create a iso/img/qcow2/ami of your configuration </div> This makes NixOS (almost) completely reproducible. tangent</div> to get all of your applications/configuration onto a new computer you just have to run nixos-rebuild</code> on it and you're done (except copying over any data, but you get the point) </div> It also allows you to rollback to your last configuration if anything goes wrong. nix-darwin</h3> nix-darwin ported the concept (and much of the code) of NixOS to macOS, so you can configure most of your mac with nix. home-manager</h3> home-manager is similar to nix-darwin, but it "just" manages programs/configuration inside your users home directory. It is (mostly) cross compatible between NixOS, other linux distributions and macOS. some setup</h2> Before doing any of this, please make sure you have a backup!!! nix</code> has to be installed to use any of this, so please follow the instructions here</a> to install nix</code>. mac configuration</h2> We'll need a flake to put all our configuration into. So create a new git repository somewhere and run nix flake init</code> in there. To use nix-darwin</code> and home-manager</code> we first have to add their respective inputs and add them to the arguments of our output function. { description = "My first nix flake"; inputs = { nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-23.05-darwin"; # newest version as of may 2023, probably needs to get updated in november home-manager.url = "github:nix-community/home-manager/release-23.05"; # ... home-manager.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs"; # nix will normally use the nixpkgs defined in home-managers inputs, we only want one copy of nixpkgs though darwin.url = "github:lnl7/nix-darwin"; darwin.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs"; # ... }; # add the inputs declared above to the argument attribute set outputs = { self, nixpkgs, home-manager, darwin }: { # we want `nix-darwin` and not gnu hello, so the packages stuff can go }; }</code></pre> To actually have a nix-darwin configuration, we'll need a darwinConfiguration</code> output. So let's add one outputs = { self, nixpkgs, home-manager, darwin }: { darwinConfigurations."YourHostName" = darwin.lib.darwinSystem { # you can have multiple darwinConfigurations per flake, one per hostname system = "aarch64-darwin"; # "x86_64-darwin" if you're using a pre M1 mac modules = [ ./hosts/YourHostName/default.nix ]; # will be important later }; };</code></pre> I like to have a folder for each computer inside of the flake for system specific configuration. So let's mkdir -p hosts/YourHostName</code> and create a default.nix</code> there. # hosts/YourHostName/default.nix { pkgs, ... }: { # Make sure the nix daemon always runs services.nix-daemon.enable = true; # Installs a version of nix, that dosen't need "experimental-features = nix-command flakes" in /etc/nix/nix.conf services.nix-daemon.package = pkgs.nixFlakes; # if you use zsh (the default on new macOS installations), # you'll need to enable this so nix-darwin creates a zshrc sourcing needed environment changes programs.zsh.enable = true; # bash is enabled by default }</code></pre> If you used NixOS before, this file is like a NixOS configuration.nix</code>, just with fewer and partly different options. tangent</div> You can find all options in the documentation</a> </div> A few options I want to make sure everybody using nix-darwin</code> knows of are homebrew</code> and system.defaults</code>. homebrew</h3> The homebrew</code> module lets you install software from brew.sh</a> declaratively, which makes it much less a chore to deal with. Using nix</code> and something like homebrew</code> or macports</code> together it kinda required IMO, because most GUI applications for mac aren't inside nixpkgs (as nixpkgs can't legally ship Xcode, which is needed for mac native GUI stuff) tangent</div> The module just runs a system installed brew</code> inside the activation script (meaning you'll have to install homebrew beforehand) </div> So if you want to install your favorite casks, you can just # hosts/YourHostName/default.nix - inside the returning attribute set homebrew = { enable = true; autoUpdate = true; # updates homebrew packages on activation, # can make darwin-rebuild much slower (otherwise i'd forget to do it ever though) casks = [ "hammerspoon" "amethyst" "alfred" "logseq" "discord" "iina" ]; };</code></pre> inside your host configuration system.defaults</h3> The system.defaults</code> module allows you to set macOS settings. (defaults(1) is the macOS/NeXTStep central user configuration system, like GNOME dconf or the Windows Registry) For example you can set system.defaults.dock.autohide = true;</code> to autohide the dock. tangent</div> All supported options are ofc. listed inside the options documentation</a> </div>home-manager</h2> I wanted to use nix-darwin</code> together with home-manager</code>, so I can code-share between my servers and my laptop. You don't have to do this though. If your only computer is your mac, just use nix-darwin by itself. To use it, we'll have to add the home-manager</code> module to our darwinConfiguration</code> # flake.nix { # ... outputs = { self, nixpkgs, home-manager, darwin }: { # Deleted the `packages` and `defaultPackage` outputs, as they aren't needed darwinConfiguration."YourHostName" = darwin.lib.darwinSystem { system = "aarch64-darwin"; # "x86_64-darwin" if you're using a pre M1 mac modules = [ home-manager.darwinModules.home-manager ./hosts/YourHostName/default.nix ]; # will be important later }; }; }</code></pre> Now we can use home-manager</code> in our system configuration, just like on NixOS # hosts/YourHostName/default.nix - inside the returning attribute set home-manager.useGlobalPkgs = true; home-manager.useUserPackages = true; home-manager.users.YourUserName = { pkgs, ... }: { stateVersion = "23.05"; # read below programs.tmux = { # my tmux configuration, for example enable = true; keyMode = "vi"; clock24 = true; historyLimit = 10000; plugins = with pkgs.tmuxPlugins; [ vim-tmux-navigator gruvbox ]; extraConfig = '' new-session -s main bind-key -n C-a send-prefix ''; }; };</code></pre> The stateVersion</code> attribute is described here</a> tangent</div> All the home-manager options are listed in their documentation</a> home-manager services</code> only work on linux though (as they use systemd, which is a linux only thing) </div>Installation</h2> To install our newly created nix-darwin</code> configuration, we have to first build it, and then run darwin-rebuild from there. tangent</div> There is also a nix-darwin installer. It dosen't work with flakes though. </div># builds the darwinConfiguration. # after insalling nix-darwin, we won't need to specify extra-experimental-features anymore nix build .#darwinConfigurations.YourHostName.system --extra-experimental-features "nix-command flakes" # the plan is to now run this to install nix-darwin with our configuration # ./result/sw/bin/darwin-rebuild switch --flake . # this will fail as we first have to do the following lines printf 'run\tprivate/var/run\n' | sudo tee -a /etc/synthetic.conf # read below /System/Library/Filesystems/apfs.fs/Contents/Resources/apfs.util -t # read below # now we can finally darwin-rebuild ./result/sw/bin/darwin-rebuild switch --flake . # install nix-darwin</code></pre> tangent</div> macOS dosen't allow any software to write to /</code>. Instead you can write directory names or symlinks to /etc/synthetic.conf</code>. macOS will then create those files/symlinks on boot. (rebooting is boring, so we'll just run apfs.util -t</code> to create them immediately) nix itself has just "nix" inside /etc/synthetic.conf</code> (an empty folder at /nix</code>), it'll then mount an apfs volume containing your nix store above it. nix-darwin needs a symlink from /run</code> to /private/var/run</code> to function, that's whats added in the printf|tee line </div> Your shell needs to source an rc file from nix-darwin to set up your environment variables. /etc/static/zshrc</code> for zsh and /etc/static/bashrc</code> for bash. that's what the programs.zsh.enable</code> was for </blockquote> so run echo 'if test -e /etc/static/bashrc; then . /etc/static/bashrc; fi' | sudo tee -a /etc/bashrc</code></pre> on bash and echo 'if test -e /etc/static/zshrc; then . /etc/static/zshrc; fi' | sudo tee -a /etc/zshrc</code></pre> on zsh. You may have to rerun this on macOS updates. If you make changes to your configuration, you just have to commit them and run darwin-rebuild switch --flake .</code> inside the repo. tangent</div> nixpkgs</code> and home-manager</code> release new (stable) versions twice a year, currently in May and November. that's what the 23.05</code> in flake inputes is for. To update or install a newer version you have to increase the version number, do nix flake update</code> and darwin-rebuild</code> Doing an occasional nix flake update</code> is wise </div> I hope this post will guide some of you to the god complex</a>. When I find the time, I'll try guiding you to manage multiple systems in a single flake. You can find all the code of this post here</a>. And my NixOS/nix-darwin configurations here</a>

FIDO2</h3>
Kinda self explanatory.</p>
Firefox on linux only supports USB FIDO2 Keys, but there</a> are</a> adapter softwares</a> to make it work over NFC. this one uses fido2-hid-bridge</a>.</p>

NDEF</h3>
32 kilobytes to carry shitposts everywhere one goes.</p>
this one just has a link to xyno.space</a> in there like some boring being, although this ofc could be used for more fun stuff</a>.</p>

Framework NFC Reader</h3>
it (regrettably</a>) has a Framework 13, and started to design a NFC reader expansion slot thing for that. Hope it'll ever finish that project lmao.</p>

Alternatives</h2>
There's also the VivoKey Apex Flex</a>, which has some proprietary applets, a phone app to install them (instead of GlobalPlatformPro), but doesn't support installation of custom applets.</p>
Probably the more sensible (they even have support</em>) but less fun choice</p>

Conclusion</h1>
getting chipped is very good for the bot, every time it uses this thing it smiles more than it reasonably should. 10/10 would get chipped again. (probably will get chipped again)</p>

Getting parcel to play nice with templates</h2>

Explanation of the nix ecosystem</h2>

nix-darwin</h3>
nix-darwin ported the concept (and much of the code) of NixOS to macOS, so you can configure most of your mac with nix.</p>

home-manager</h3>
home-manager is similar to nix-darwin, but it "just" manages programs/configuration inside your users home directory. It is (mostly) cross compatible between NixOS, other linux distributions and macOS.</p>

some setup</h2>
Before doing any of this, please make sure you have a backup!!!</strong></p>
`nix</code> has to be installed to use any of this, so please follow the instructions here</a> to install nix</code>.</p>`

xyno.space

how to and why to have java running inside of one

NFC readers</h2>
The reader (or some driver for the reader) needs to be PC/SC compatible to just work(tm) with all the tools one wants to use with it. This should include all libccid compatible readers</a> (watch out to get one with NFC) and some more.</p>
This one tried a few readers:</p>

Applets</h2>
the main reason to get the JavaCard implant is to install applets on it. DangerousThings has a list of applets and assorted documentation</a>, which is what this one exclusively used.</p>
The applets this one has installed and uses are:</p>

Using Parcel with Go Templates

Using Rosetta 2 in a NixOS VM

Mounting a nix-store via NFS

Declarative macOS Configuration Using nix-darwin And home-manager

xyno.space

how to and why to have java running inside of one

FIDO2</h3> Kinda self explanatory.</p>

Using Parcel with Go Templates

How my blog engine works</h2> My blog engine is build around a SQLite database storing posts, tags (that aren't used yet) and metadata (that also isn't used yet). A go server reads the database and renders the markdown to HTML/RSS feeds.</p>

Getting parcel to play nice with templates</h2>

The Parcel Plugins I needed to write</h3> Parcel plugins are their own JS Projects with their own package.json, etc. Using yarn workspaces this wasn't even as painful as I had thought.</p>

A Namer to place assets into a different directory</h4> The default Namer just puts all your assets into the same directory. But as the output consists of both files to be read by the templating engine and assets, the files needed to be split into different directories.</p>

Building the whole thing with nix</h2> tangent</div> You didn't really</em> think you'll get a post without nix, did you? </div> My build process consists out of three parts:</p> Build the templates with parcel</li> Convert the templates to go code with quicktemplate</li>

Using Rosetta 2 in a NixOS VM

Mounting a nix-store via NFS

Declarative macOS Configuration Using nix-darwin And home-manager

Explanation of the nix ecosystem</h2>

nix-darwin</h3> nix-darwin ported the concept (and much of the code) of NixOS to macOS, so you can configure most of your mac with nix.</p>

home-manager</h3> home-manager is similar to nix-darwin, but it "just" manages programs/configuration inside your users home directory. It is (mostly) cross compatible between NixOS, other linux distributions and macOS.</p>

some setup</h2> Before doing any of this, please make sure you have a backup!!!</strong></p> nix</code> has to be installed to use any of this, so please follow the instructions here</a> to install nix</code>.</p>

FIDO2</h3>
Kinda self explanatory.</p>
Firefox on linux only supports USB FIDO2 Keys, but there</a> are</a> adapter softwares</a> to make it work over NFC. this one uses fido2-hid-bridge</a>.</p>

nix-darwin</h3>
nix-darwin ported the concept (and much of the code) of NixOS to macOS, so you can configure most of your mac with nix.</p>

home-manager</h3>
home-manager is similar to nix-darwin, but it "just" manages programs/configuration inside your users home directory. It is (mostly) cross compatible between NixOS, other linux distributions and macOS.</p>

some setup</h2>
Before doing any of this, please make sure you have a backup!!!</strong></p>
`nix</code> has to be installed to use any of this, so please follow the instructions here</a> to install nix</code>.</p>`