On: Avoiding Complexity with Systemd

[nh2]

> Why does this "not compose well" ?

Because you cannot easily write libraries/components that do this.

In NixOS, other modules can override the options of other modules. For example, a a web app can set the nginx options that it needs, instead of requiring you (the admin) to "drop a file" in /etc.

This is one of the reasons why on Ansible Galaxy (community repository of Ansible roles) there are 527 nginx roles [1], and in NixOS there is 1 nginx module that everybody code-reuses.

[1]: https://galaxy.ansible.com/search?deprecated=false&tags=web&...

[Arnavion → nh2]

What does

    systemd.services.nginx.unitConfig.StartLimitIntervalSec = 0;

do that it doesn't require root?

If the point is that it's not manipulating a system-level nginx service but a user-level one, then writing the systemd override file in the way I described doesn't require root either.

[nh2 → Arnavion]

Applying the NixOS config requires root -- that's not what it's about.

What I mean is that services can set other services' options, without you (the admin) having to to write such overrides manually.

[Arnavion → nh2]

Nothing prevents $service's package from creating /etc/systemd/system/nginx.service.d/90-restart-always.conf in a regular distro.