Nix package

[gBasil]

I was wondering if Padloc could be packaged for Nix.

[MaKleSoft]

Hi there! Can you please explain what Nix is and why it would be a good idea for Padloc to be packaged for it? Also, please outline the specific steps that would be required to make this happen.

[gBasil]

Hello! Nix is a cross-platform (Linux and macOS) package manager. It has a Linux distribution called NixOS that is built upon it. Nix has a declarative programming language (also called Nix), with which the packages are defined. Also, NixOS is configured in the same language, which makes it very easy to declaratively configure the system in one place.

It admittedly has a steep learning curve and the documentation isn't the best, and I'm personally not the most confident in my abilities with it just yet, so consulting with community members would probably be best.

It would be nice to have it officially packaged on Nix as well as having a systemd service defined, as it would allow for Padloc to be run just by including the following bit of code in a .nix file in the system configuration:

services.padloc.enable = true;

# Or if the services are split (client & server), it could look like this:
services.padloc-server.enable = true;
services.padloc-server.enable = true;

A good introductory resource is this blog post: https://www.slice.zone/blog/nix-in-practice
Potentially also a good resource on Nix, focused on packaging: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/717169