add NixOS server article

content/posts/hosting-on-nixos.md

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+title = "Hosting on NixOS"
+date = 2023-06-06
+draft = false
+
+[taxonomies]
+categories = [ "nixos" ]
+tags = [ "nixos", "nixos-22.11", "nixos-server" ]
++++
+
+description: Running NixOS on Linode VPS for services like Jekyll, Mastodon and Nextcloud.
+
+## Installing on Linode
+
+I've been using Linode for a while and I used this [article](https://www.linode.com/docs/guides/install-nixos-on-linode/) to install NixOS on a Linode. Now I was using one large server (2GB plan) to host everything but I thought that splitting them up would be better so I just cloned my server onto another Linode using their great webUI! 
+
+## Two is better than one
+
+Now that I have two servers I needed names for them, I've never been good with hostnames but I'm not using Mass Effect (Andromeda) characters for my systems. Mass Effect characters are for x86_64 systems and Andromeda characters for ARM64 devices. The two servers themselves are names after Reapers so sovereign and harbinger!
+
+### Hydra 
+
+The hardest part of starting for me was understanding DNS and HTTPS setup, this included using Nginx to reverse proxy a locally running service like [Hydra](https://github.com/NixOS/hydra). I was able to get this working with this [configuration](https://gitlab.com/ahoneybun/nix-configs/-/blob/main/dev/hydra-ahoneybun-net.nix) this allows it to be viewed from https://hydra.ahoneybun.net (it is currently off as I was just testing). 
+
+When I first tried setting Hydra up I was using the default settings for using a Nginx reverse proxy but it was not loading CSS and JavaScript, after hours of going though GitHub and Reddit I found this option which was the key:
+
+```nix
+recommendedProxySettings = true;
+```
+
+Once that was added and I rebuilt `nixos-rebuild` everything worked as it should have!
+
+### Jekyll
+
+For a long time this site has been on GitHub pages but I wanted to change that (partly as I was having issues with how GitHub handles DNS) and this is the first blog post since that happened and now you're on a site hosted on NixOS! Getting Jekyll to build with my [site](https://github.com/ahoneybun/ahoneybun.net) took a while but these commands was able to build with my plugins:
+
+```bash
+cd ahoneybun.net
+nix-shell -p jekyll rubyPackages.webrick rubyPackages.jekyll-feed rubyPackages.jekyll-redirect-from
+jekyll build
+```
+
+I created a nix-shell file (in the repository) so that I can run these commands (from the root directory) to update the site once I make a change on GitHub:
+
+```bash
+git pull
+nix-shell
+jekyll build
+```
+
+### Mastodon
+
+Setting up Mastodon on NixOS was just using this [wiki](https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Mastodon) page and then rebuild. One issue with my configuration is that I don't have SMTP working so confirmation emails are not sent out. To workaround this I can confirm the account using `tootctl` on the server itself like this:
+
+```bash
+# Switch to root
+sudo su
+
+# Switch to mastodon account
+su - mastodon -s $(which bash)
+
+## Approve accounts though tootctl
+mastodon-env tootctl accounts approve PUT-YOUR-USERNAME-HERE
+
+## Accept email address though tootctl 
+mastodon-env tootctl accounts modify PUT-YOUR-USERNAME-HERE --confirm
+```
+
+[Mastodon server](https://stoners.space/about)
+
+[Source](https://page.romeov.me/posts/setting-up-mastodon-with-nixos/#adding-your-user)
+
+### Nextcloud
+
+I'm still working on getting this to not use SQLite which is the default and have better security plus other fixes but it is working [here](https://cloud.ahoneybun.net) and here is the [nix file](https://gitlab.com/ahoneybun/nix-configs/-/blob/main/web/cloud-ahoneybun-net.nix).
+
+## Nix Files
+
+You can find all of my nix files [here](https://gitlab.com/ahoneybun/nix-configs).