In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of installing Homer, an open-source dashboard for monitoring and analyzing server activity, on the latest version of NixOS. Homer is available on GitHub and can be installed using Nix, the package manager for NixOS.
Before installing any software, it is recommended to update the system to ensure that the latest packages are installed. Open a terminal and run the following command:
sudo nix-channel --update && sudo nixos-rebuild switch
To install Homer, we will first need to create a Nix package for it. Create a new file with the following contents:
{ stdenv, fetchFromGitHub, python3Packages }:
stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
pname = "homer";
version = "latest";
src = fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "bastienwirtz";
repo = "homer";
rev = "HEAD";
sha256 = "17v14409sbxlrl8c9fgz1knflp1y3q4y4q0j78kcv4alw2ny82ij";
};
buildInputs = with python3Packages; [ pip virtualenv ]
++ withPackages (ps: [ps.gunicorn ps.flask]);
pythonPath = python3Packages.python3;
preBuild = ''
virtualenv --python=$pythonPath $out
source $out/bin/activate
pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt
export FLASK_APP=homer/server.py
export FLASK_ENV=production
export HOMER_CONFIG=$out/config.yml
'';
installPhase = ''
mkdir -p $out/bin $out/www $out/data $out/logs
cp $src/server.py $out/bin/
cp -R $src/homer $out/www/
cp -R $src/templates $out/www/
cp $src/config.yml $out/
'';
meta = {
description = "A simple yet powerful dashboard for displaying metrics and monitoring of Unix systems.";
homepage = "https://github.com/bastienwirtz/homer/";
license = stdenv.lib.licenses.mit;
};
}
Save the file as homer.nix in your home directory. This file defines a Nix package for Homer and fetches the latest version of the source code from GitHub.
Next, install Homer using the following command:
sudo nix-env --install -E 'with import <nixpkgs> {}; callPackage /home/YOUR_USERNAME/homer.nix {}'
Replace YOUR_USERNAME with your actual user name.
After installation, we need to configure Homer to suit our needs. Create a new file with the following contents:
HOMER_APP_SECRET_KEY=YOUR_SECRET_KEY
FLASK_SECRET_KEY=YOUR_FLASK_SECRET_KEY
Replace YOUR_SECRET_KEY and YOUR_FLASK_SECRET_KEY with your own secret keys.
Save the file as homer.env in your home directory.
To run Homer, open a terminal and execute the following command:
sudo -E homer
The -E option preserves environment variables, so that Homer can access the secret keys we defined in homer.env.
After starting up, Homer should be available at http://localhost:8000 in your web browser.
In this tutorial, we showed you how to install Homer on the latest version of NixOS. Homer is a versatile monitoring tool that can help you keep your server in good health. With its user-friendly interface and powerful metrics, Homer is a great addition to any server administrator's toolkit.
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