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Users & Groups

User and group management in nix-caliga, like system-manager, uses userborn to configure users and groups during boot. The config.users.* options from NixOS are almost all supported.

Enabling config.caliga.core.users.enable requires config.caliga.core.etc-usr.enable, config.caliga.core.systemd.enable, and config.caliga.os to be set.

Userborn

Userborn runs as a systemd service early durring boot to create and update users and groups. The base image’s systemd-sysusers.service is masked when config.caliga.core.users is enabled.

Home Directories

On bootc, /home is typically a symlink to /var/home so that home directories persist across image updates. If the user has createHome as true, this is handled by building the /home/* symlink to /var/home* into the image.
Currently NixOS’ config.users.defaultUserHome does not exist, but per-user config.users.users.<name>.home is still configurable.

OS-Specific Base Users and Groups

To add a user to a base image group with config.users.users.*.extraGroups, the group must have a GID in the config.
Additionally, a few system users like root need their id’s set as well.
These ids differ between OS, so we set these as part of config.caliga.os.

Options

Enabled with config.caliga.core.users.enable.

  • config.users.users
  • config.users.groups
  • config.users.mutableUsers
    • Defaults to true
  • config.users.defaultUserShell
  • config.users.enforceIdUniqueness
  • config.users.allowNoPasswordLogin

Differences from NixOS

Removed or Stubbed Options

  • config.users.defaultUserHome
  • config.users.manageLingering
  • config.users.users.<name>.openssh
  • config.users.users.<name>.cryptHomeLuks
  • config.users.users.<name>.pamMount
  • config.users.users.<name>.subUidRanges/subGidRanges/autoSubUidGidRange
  • config.users.users.<name>.expires

Changed Options

  • config.users.users.<name>.linger Currently there is no null option, the user is either lingering, or not. true or false only.
  • config.users.users.<name>.shell — needs to use the base image’s shell such as /usr/bin/zsh, not a package like pkgs.zsh as programs.${shell}.enable does not exist.