users-groups: add skel support via environment.etc.skel #78648

mkg20001 · 2020-01-28T00:57:59Z

Motivation for this change

For projects like https://github.com/mercode-org/meros-nix it makes sense to have the ability to customize a few things here and there. Since /etc/skel is available everywhere else, why not on nixOS?

This adds multiple options:

environment.etc.skel: Provides the directory to copy from
users.users..copySkel: Boolean, default true if createHome true. Enables copying of /etc/skel for that user.

Things done

worldofpeace · 2020-01-28T22:42:54Z

I recall having to do some funny interesting things without skel in NixOS

nixpkgs/pkgs/desktops/pantheon/desktop/elementary-session-settings/default.nix

Line 28 in 595f379

# Upstream relies on /etc/skel to initiate a new users home directory with plank's dockitems.

But I'm not sure how I feel about it being here. I don't see much of managing anything in the users homedir in NixOS. I'm wondering why it was never included in the first place.

mkg20001 · 2020-01-28T22:48:28Z

I'm wondering why it was never included in the first place.

The other PR #41858 was rejected because nixOS shouldn't manage the homedir.

Note that the backbone of the idea for that PR was what home-manager does today.

This PR is entirely different and adds a way to initialize the homedir once and then leave it be, so no managing, making it more similar to services.postgresql.initialScript

aanderse · 2020-01-28T23:07:11Z

cc @grahamc who has opinions on this sort of thing

matthewbauer · 2020-01-29T21:30:51Z

nixos/tests/environment-skel.nix

+
+  nodes = {
+    machine = { config, lib, pkgs, ... }: {
+      users.users.testuser = {


shouldn't copySkel be set?

It's implict if createHome is set, but I think it should be implicitly set if createHome && isNormalUser

This tries to replicate the behaviour of the adduser command which automatically copies skel unless otherwise specified AFAIK

matthewbauer · 2020-01-29T21:36:04Z

Would it be possible to get this to use /etc/skel? For instance, I might have some configuration like:

environment.etc."skel/.bashrc".text = ''
  export NIX_PATH="..."
'';

And would like it to work equally well with "immutableUsers" and useradd and pam_mkhomedir.

mkg20001 · 2020-01-29T21:40:23Z

@matthewbauer Yes, the trouble is just resolving the links and then copying just the contents (does cp have an option for that?). Would it be enough to just use /etc/skel or do I need to reference the actual store path?

mkg20001 · 2020-02-11T00:48:52Z

@matthewbauer I've implemented it to use /etc/skel now (from system.build.etc)

nixos/tests/all-tests.nix

worldofpeace · 2020-03-23T20:49:17Z

Everything else seems fine to me.

grahamc · 2020-03-24T17:52:09Z

nixos/tests/environment-skel.nix

+    machine.wait_for_unit("default.target")
+
+    machine.succeed("test -d /home/testuser/new-directory")
+    machine.succeed("test -f /home/testuser/new-file")


How about a test asserting that the testuser can delete these things?

edolstra · 2020-03-24T17:53:26Z

Why do we need /etc/skel? We could also just specify a directory in the Nix store to use as a skeleton. The use of /etc should generally be avoided for configuration files/data that are internal to one program (in this case, update-users-groups.pl). Also, using a global directory like /etc/skel precludes having different skeletons for different users, which could be avoided if we had an option like users.users.*.skeleton = ... derivation that creates some files ....

edolstra · 2020-03-24T17:55:03Z

BTW uncommon abbreviations like "skel" should be avoided in favour of "skeleton" or "template" or whatever.

worldofpeace · 2020-03-24T17:58:21Z

Why do we need /etc/skel? We could also just specify a directory in the Nix store to use as a skeleton.

I think it would be a good idea to have an improved feature, but I think the scope of the PR was to be /etc/skel support in NixOS.

BTW uncommon abbreviations like "skel" should be avoided in favour of "skeleton" or "template" or whatever.

I think the abbreviation is what it's widely referred to http://www.linfo.org/etc_skel.html.
Though I could agree that copySkel doesn't really stick out to what this thing does. And it still gets implicitly enabled with createHome.

edolstra · 2020-03-24T18:00:00Z

I think it would be a good idea to have an improved feature, but I think the scope of the PR was to be /etc/skel support in NixOS.

I don't think we need /etc/skel support in NixOS. Rather, what we want is a way to initialize home directories. But we don't have to copy the non-declarative mechanisms of other Linux distributions for that.

worldofpeace · 2020-03-24T18:05:31Z

I think it would be a good idea to have an improved feature, but I think the scope of the PR was to be /etc/skel support in NixOS.

I don't think we need /etc/skel support in NixOS. Rather, what we want is a way to initialize home directories. But we don't have to copy the non-declarative mechanisms of other Linux distributions for that.

I see, I think that sounds reasonable. And your edit for a per-user option intrigues me.

worldofpeace

This should work as is, but I retract my approval because @edolstra actually raised some good points, and I'd actually enjoy this feature more with them.

worldofpeace · 2020-03-24T18:09:26Z

@edolstra I believe the scope of your request is to make it more declarative, but still just for initialization of a user's home directory with createHome? I'm mentioning this because I remembered home-manager's home.file https://github.com/rycee/home-manager/blob/master/modules/files.nix.

mkg20001 · 2020-03-27T17:53:22Z

@edolstra After a talk with @worldofpeace we realized #41858 seems more like you want this PR to be. But there's already home-manager's home.file and /etc/skel is just a simple standard, if users need more I feel like they're really better off just switching to home-manager.

What do you think?

edolstra · 2020-03-27T19:33:10Z

Yeah, #41858 (or home-manager) seems like a better fit. The issue with /etc/skel is that it's the sort of standard that we don't really want to follow in NixOS because it's not very declarative (e.g. if users modify it outside of their NixOS configuration). Having said that, any option specifying the initial contents of a stateful entity is inherently a non-congruent form of configuration management, so it doesn't really matter that much...

erdnaxe · 2020-03-29T20:27:51Z

It may be worth mentioning that the following actually works :

users.users.<user>.createHome = false;
security.pam.services.login.makeHomeDir = true;
security.pam.services.sddm.makeHomeDir = true;
security.pam.makeHomeDir.skelDirectory = "${./user-skeleton}";

This enables users to create NixOS live media without a /etc/skel directory.

mkg20001 · 2020-07-30T19:13:13Z

Don't see any chance of this getting merged, so see ya downstream fellas

ofborg bot added 6.topic: nixos 8.has: module (update) 10.rebuild-darwin: 0 10.rebuild-linux: 1-10 labels Jan 28, 2020

matthewbauer reviewed Jan 29, 2020

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worldofpeace requested a review from edolstra January 29, 2020 21:34

users-groups: add environment.skel option

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mkg20001 force-pushed the skel branch from 702946b to 3b2e93a Compare February 11, 2020 00:47

mkg20001 changed the title ~~users-groups: add environment.skel option~~ users-groups: add skel support via environment.etc.skel Feb 11, 2020

worldofpeace requested a review from matthewbauer March 23, 2020 19:51

matthewbauer approved these changes Mar 23, 2020

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matthewbauer requested review from worldofpeace and infinisil March 23, 2020 20:39

worldofpeace reviewed Mar 23, 2020

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users-groups: add test for environment.skel option

f894883

mkg20001 force-pushed the skel branch from f2e9491 to f894883 Compare March 24, 2020 05:50

grahamc reviewed Mar 24, 2020

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worldofpeace suggested changes Mar 24, 2020

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mkg20001 closed this Jul 30, 2020

bobvanderlinden mentioned this pull request Oct 15, 2022

/etc/skel is not being used for createHome #33586

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users-groups: add skel support via environment.etc.skel #78648

users-groups: add skel support via environment.etc.skel #78648

mkg20001 commented Jan 28, 2020 •

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users-groups: add skel support via environment.etc.skel #78648

users-groups: add skel support via environment.etc.skel #78648

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mkg20001 commented Jan 28, 2020 • edited Loading

Motivation for this change

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