techWebsite/content/posts/nixos-easy-host.md

+++ title = "Running non Nixpkgs services on NixOS, the lazy way" date = 2025-03-26T14:09:14+01:00 draft = false +++

NixOS is really nice for self hosting. Anything that has a NixOS module can be hosted in a few lines of nix code. But what if the service we want to host doesn't come with a NixOS module written for us already in Nixpkgs? This is where NixOS can be a little hard, as a guide on setting up a service in Debian or Arch will rarely work on NixOS. Of course, the 'nix way' would be to write your own package and module for it, but that can be a daunting task. Here are some 'escape hatches' to host some of the simpler services without having to write your own Nix package or module.

Nginx

If the application is a simple static website, containing just HTML and JS, the nginx module on NixOS provides us with a way to manage virtual hosts complete with https. Shown is how I host my Hugo generated blog.

{ config, ... }: {
  services.nginx.virtualHosts."gabevenberg.com" = {
      enableACME = true;
      forceSSL = true;
      root = "/var/www/gabevenberg.com";
  };
  security.acme = {
    acceptTerms = true;
    defaults.email = "myname@example.com";
  };
  networking.firewall.allowedTCPPorts = [443 80];
}

The complete list of options for virtual hosts can be found here

Docker

If the service publishes a Docker image, one can just run that on NixOS. Here's how I host a game server using a premade docker container. Things get a bit more complicated with docker-compose, but one can use compose2nix to translate a docker-compose.yaml file into a nix file much like the one shown.

{ config, ... }: {
  virtualisation.oci-containers = {
    backend = "docker";
    containers.factorio = {
      image = "factoriotools/factorio:stable";
      volumes = ["/storage/factorio:/factorio"];
      hostname = "factorio";
      ports = ["34197:34197/tcp"];
      environment = {UPDATE_MODS_ON_START = "true";};
    };
  };
  virtualisation.docker.enable = true;
}

There are, of course, more options for the oci-containers module, found here

Systemd

Finally, if the service is composed of a single static binary, NixOS makes it really easy to write Systemd services. (I've used a package in Nixpkgs here, but you could just as easily point the Systemd service to a binary you threw in /opt/ or somewhere.)

{ config, ... }: {
  systemd.services.miniserve = {
    wantedBy = ["multi-user.target"];
    after = ["network.target"];
    description = "A directory miniserve instance";
    environment = {MINISERVE_ENABLE_TAR_GZ="true";}
    serviceConfig.ExecStart = "${pkgs.miniserve}/bin/miniserve -i 127.0.0.1 -- /storage/miniserve"
  };
}

And like the last 2 times, the complete list of options for Systemd service can be found here

(This article was originally published in issue #6 of the Paged Out! magazine.)