the conversion procedure is simple:
- find all things that look like options, ie calls to either `mkOption`
or `lib.mkOption` that take an attrset. remember the attrset as the
option
- for all options, find a `description` attribute who's value is not a
call to `mdDoc` or `lib.mdDoc`
- textually convert the entire value of the attribute to MD with a few
simple regexes (the set from mdize-module.sh)
- if the change produced a change in the manual output, discard
- if the change kept the manual unchanged, add some text to the
description to make sure we've actually found an option. if the
manual changes this time, keep the converted description
this procedure converts 80% of nixos options to markdown. around 2000
options remain to be inspected, but most of those fail the "does not
change the manual output check": currently the MD conversion process
does not faithfully convert docbook tags like <code> and <package>, so
any option using such tags will not be converted at all.
The `nix.*` options, apart from options for setting up the
daemon itself, currently provide a lot of setting mappings
for the Nix daemon configuration. The scope of the mapping yields
convience, but the line where an option is considered essential
is blurry. For instance, the `extra-sandbox-paths` mapping is
provided without its primary consumer, and the corresponding
`sandbox-paths` option is also not mapped.
The current system increases the maintenance burden as maintainers have to
closely follow upstream changes. In this case, there are two state versions
of Nix which have to be maintained collectively, with different options
avaliable.
This commit aims to following the standard outlined in RFC 42[1] to
implement a structural setting pattern. The Nix configuration is encoded
at its core as key-value pairs which maps nicely to attribute sets, making
it feasible to express in the Nix language itself. Some existing options are
kept such as `buildMachines` and `registry` which present a simplified interface
to managing the respective settings. The interface is exposed as `nix.settings`.
Legacy configurations are mapped to their corresponding options under `nix.settings`
for backwards compatibility.
Various options settings in other nixos modules and relevant tests have been
updated to use structural setting for consistency.
The generation and validation of the configration file has been modified to
use `writeTextFile` instead of `runCommand` for clarity. Note that validation
is now mandatory as strict checking of options has been pushed down to the
derivation level due to freeformType consuming unmatched options. Furthermore,
validation can not occur when cross-compiling due to current limitations.
A new option `publicHostKey` was added to the `buildMachines`
submodule corresponding to the base64 encoded public host key settings
exposed in the builder syntax. The build machine generation was subsequently
rewritten to use `concatStringsSep` for better performance by grouping
concatenations.
[1] - https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/blob/master/rfcs/0042-config-option.md
Adds the ability to provide the --write flag in addition to the --serve flag via
a new option, services.sshServe.write.
A user can now share their system as a remote builder with friends easily as
follows:
{
nix = {
sshServe = {
enable = true;
write = true;
keys = ["ssh-dss AAAAB3NzaC1k... alice@example.org"];
};
};
}
Co-authored-by: Raphael Megzari <raphael@megzari.com>
