New nixos executable

[danbst]

Issue description

nixos-rebuild interface looks a bit archaic. Maybe we can have a better Nixos frontend CLI?

Just brain dump, but...

Technical details

Basic features:

• installable as package, even on non-nixos
• is named nixos
• is written in C++ and binds to Nix C++ library (or maybe Haskell? Nodejs? What you think?)
• autocomplete, ncurses, Nix 2.0
• commit to Git by default on each rebuild, warns on used .nix files outside of git repo

Subcommands

First I'll describe existing nixos-rebuild switches, that should go into new command:

• nixos-rebuild switch -> nixos rebuild, nixos rebuild --boot --activate
• nixos-rebuild boot -> nixos rebuild --no-activate
• nixos-rebuild test -> nixos rebuild --no-boot
• nixos-rebuild build -> nixos build
• nixos-rebuild dry-x -> nixos x --dry, nixos x --test
• nixos-rebuild --build-host -> nixos --build-on
• nixos-rebuild --target-host -> nixos --deploy-to
• nixos-rebuild switch --rollback -> nixos rollback opens a curses screen so you can select what to rollback to

Then, existing commands should be intergrated. All of those should work on non-NixOS:

• nixos-option X -> nixos option X
• nixos-generate-config -> nixos config --default, outputs to stdout
• nixos-install -> nixos install
• nixos-container XXX -> nixos container XXX
• nixos-version -> nixos -v, nixos --version. nixos -vv should be same as nix-info

Some external projects should be merged in:

• nixos-infect -> nixos infect --confirm-infect, also nixos infect --confirm-infect --deploy-to

And probably some new stuff added:

• show all options -> nixos options, the output should be fast and compatible with FZF
• lustrate thing -> nixos lustrate --confirm-lustrate
• nixos options --edit should start a webserver, browser and provide interactive point-and-click editing experience

Anything missed?

[leo60228]

nixos options --edit might be too complicated. However, we could possibly attempt to port the options table from https://nixos.org to have a value column.

[davidak]

Sounds good!

nixos config --edit could open config in default $EDITOR and later open browser with interactive editor.

commit to Git by default on each rebuild, warns on used .nix files outside of git repo

So should /etc/nixos/ be a git repo? Could be an option for users that don't care.

I have my config in /root/nixos-config and symlink config to /etc/nixos/configuration.nix.

I want to commit after a rebuild was sucessfull. Often i need multiple tries.

An option to not commit would be enough for me.

[hedning]

autocomplete

Use the same self documenting help format as nix and it would be pretty trivial to add support in nix-{zsh,bash}-completions. Completions fornix are already automatically generated from the help (was really nice not having to do anything about the nix-2.2 release :).

[avnik]

Looks good idea for me.

Probably it should be implemented in rust or c++ (I presonally prefer rust here over c++), I asked in IRC about other stuff, and rust was a common language suggestion.

[danbst]

Related issue: #51198

I think nixos-lib (or equivalently nixos lib) should contain all NixOS activation scripts, rewritten in C++/Rust/Go/whatever.

[infinisil]

nixos-rebuild just got an edit command :) #56241

[oxij]

I think I mentioned this before somewhere but SLNOS doesn't use `nixos-rebuild` (because there's no `/etc/nixos` equivalent in SLNOS) and does a lot of this with a simple bash script, e.g.:

$ slnos build --on machine --for other-machine other-machine.nix $ slnos build --on machine --for other-machine

(both do the same thing) will build `other-machine.nix` (this will be its `configuration.nix`, but you can specify several files at the same time and it will then generate a temporary nix file with imports a-la NixOps) on `machine`, `nix-copy` over to `other-machine`. `switch`, `boot`, `test`, and etc are selected interactively after the fact, or with

$ slnos build --on machine --for this-machine this-machine.nix temporary-networking-changes.nix --and-then test

(I do this one all the time.) I don't see why nixos can't do the same.

[matthew-piziak]

Another thing I'd like to see supported is -L/--print-build-logs for nixos-rebuild, which already exists for nix build.

[stale]

Thank you for your contributions.
This has been automatically marked as stale because it has had no activity for 180 days.
If this is still important to you, we ask that you leave a comment below. Your comment can be as simple as "still important to me". This lets people see that at least one person still cares about this. Someone will have to do this at most twice a year if there is no other activity.
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[davidak]

this is still needed to make NixOS more userfriendly

a next step could be a usable prototype as wrapper in python or whatever you like

[matthew-piziak]

Since my last comment I have discovered nix-top, which I use to see what a build is currently struggling with.

[xaverdh]

This is not just about usability by the way, there is a lot of duplication in the nixos-* tooling. They all accept roughly the same nix options, which get passed through to nix calls. And actually they do get out of sync with both nix itself and each other from time to time..

[liff]

Looks like nixos-rebuild build-vm[-with-bootloader] is missing a subcommand.

[matthiasbeyer]

commit to Git by default on each rebuild

This is an antipattern and I really hope there will be an option to disable this!

[stale]

I marked this as stale due to inactivity. → More info

[liff]

Not stale, I hope?

[misuzu]

How about nixos gc -d for nix-collect-garbage -d && /nix/var/nix/profiles/system/bin/switch-to-configuration boot?

[nixos-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixpkgs-cli-working-group/30517/5

[water-sucks]

I've made a precursor to this that's still in very early stages, just to see where it can go. The repo is here, I'd like to see how far this can be taken.