nixpkgs/nixos/doc/manual/configuration/config-file.section.md

NixOS Configuration File

The NixOS configuration file generally looks like this:

{ config, pkgs, ... }:

{ /* option definitions */
}

The first line ({ config, pkgs, ... }:) denotes that this is actually a function that takes at least the two arguments config and pkgs. (These are explained later, in chapter ) The function returns a set of option definitions ({ ... }). These definitions have the form name = value, where name is the name of an option and value is its value. For example,

{ config, pkgs, ... }:

{ services.httpd.enable = true;
  services.httpd.adminAddr = "alice@example.org";
  services.httpd.virtualHosts.localhost.documentRoot = "/webroot";
}

defines a configuration with three option definitions that together enable the Apache HTTP Server with /webroot as the document root.

Sets can be nested, and in fact dots in option names are shorthand for defining a set containing another set. For instance, defines a set named services that contains a set named httpd, which in turn contains an option definition named enable with value true. This means that the example above can also be written as:

{ config, pkgs, ... }:

{ services = {
    httpd = {
      enable = true;
      adminAddr = "alice@example.org";
      virtualHosts = {
        localhost = {
          documentRoot = "/webroot";
        };
      };
    };
  };
}

which may be more convenient if you have lots of option definitions that share the same prefix (such as services.httpd).

NixOS checks your option definitions for correctness. For instance, if you try to define an option that doesn't exist (that is, doesn't have a corresponding option declaration), nixos-rebuild will give an error like:

The option `services.httpd.enable' defined in `/etc/nixos/configuration.nix' does not exist.

Likewise, values in option definitions must have a correct type. For instance, services.httpd.enable must be a Boolean (true or false). Trying to give it a value of another type, such as a string, will cause an error:

The option value `services.httpd.enable' in `/etc/nixos/configuration.nix' is not a boolean.

Options have various types of values. The most important are:

Strings

Strings are enclosed in double quotes, e.g.

{
  networking.hostName = "dexter";
}

Special characters can be escaped by prefixing them with a backslash (e.g. \").

Multi-line strings can be enclosed in double single quotes, e.g.

{
  networking.extraHosts =
    ''
      127.0.0.2 other-localhost
      10.0.0.1 server
    '';
}

The main difference is that it strips from each line a number of spaces equal to the minimal indentation of the string as a whole (disregarding the indentation of empty lines), and that characters like " and \ are not special (making it more convenient for including things like shell code). See more info about this in the Nix manual here.

Booleans

These can be true or false, e.g.

{
  networking.firewall.enable = true;
  networking.firewall.allowPing = false;
}

Integers

For example,

{
  boot.kernel.sysctl."net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_time" = 60;
}

(Note that here the attribute name net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_time is enclosed in quotes to prevent it from being interpreted as a set named net containing a set named ipv4, and so on. This is because it's not a NixOS option but the literal name of a Linux kernel setting.)

Sets

Sets were introduced above. They are name/value pairs enclosed in braces, as in the option definition

{
  fileSystems."/boot" =
    { device = "/dev/sda1";
      fsType = "ext4";
      options = [ "rw" "data=ordered" "relatime" ];
    };
}

Lists

The important thing to note about lists is that list elements are separated by whitespace, like this:

{
  boot.kernelModules = [ "fuse" "kvm-intel" "coretemp" ];
}

List elements can be any other type, e.g. sets:

{
  swapDevices = [ { device = "/dev/disk/by-label/swap"; } ];
}

Packages

Usually, the packages you need are already part of the Nix Packages collection, which is a set that can be accessed through the function argument pkgs. Typical uses:

{
  environment.systemPackages =
    [ pkgs.thunderbird
      pkgs.emacs
    ];

  services.postgresql.package = pkgs.postgresql_14;
}

The latter option definition changes the default PostgreSQL package used by NixOS's PostgreSQL service to 14.x. For more information on packages, including how to add new ones, see .