docspell/website/site/content/docs/install/nix.md

+++ title = "Nix / NixOS" weight = 24 +++

Nix

Docspell is a flake, you need to enable flakes in order to make use of it. You can also use the provided expressions without Flakes, which is described below.

Try it out {try-it-out}

You can try out the server and joex packages by running the following:

nix run github:eikek/docspell#docspell-restserver
nix run github:eikek/docspell#docspell-joex

While this works, it will be only a very basic setup. The database defaults to a directory in /tmp and no fulltext search enabled. Then for processing documents, some external tools are required which would need to be present on yout system to make it work.

A more elaborate setup with PostgreSQL and SOLR can be started using the test-vm:

nix run github:eikek/docspell#nixosConfigurations.test-vm.config.system.build.vm

The vm contains all the required tools. After starting up, you can find docspell at http://localhost:7881.

Install via Nix

Docspell can be installed via the nix package manager. Docspell is currently not part of the nixpkgs collection, but you can use the flake from this repository.

You could install the server and joex by running the following:

nix profile install github:eikek/docspell#docspell-restserver
nix profile install github:eikek/docspell#docspell-joex

This would install the packages on your system. If you use NixOS you probably want to use the provided NixOS modules instead.

Upgrading

Since downgrading is not supported, it is recommended to backup your database before upgrading. Should something not work as expected, restore the database backup and go back to the previous version.

Docspell on NixOS

If you are running NixOS, there is a module definition for installing Docspell as a service using systemd.

There are the following modules provided:

• restserver
• joex

# flake.nix
inputs.docspell.url = "github:eikek/docspell";

# in modules
imports = [ 
      docspell.nixosModules.default
]

services.docspell-joex = { ...  }
services.docspell-restserver = { ...  }

Please see the nix/modules/server.nix and nix/modules/joex.nix files for the set of options. The nixos options are modeled after the default configuration file.

The modules files are only applicable to the newest version of Docspell. If you really need an older version, checkout the appropriate commit.

NixOS Example

This is a example system configuration that installs docspell with a postgres database. This snippet can be used to create a vm (using nixos-rebuild build-vm as shown above) or a container, for example.

# flake.nix
inputs.docspell.url = "github:eikek/docspell?dir=nix/";

# module.nix
{ config, pkgs, docspell, ... }:
{
  imports = docspell.nixosModules.default;

  ##### just for the example…
  users.users.root = {
    password = "root";
  };
  #####

  # install docspell-joex and enable the systemd service
  services.docspell-joex = {
    enable = true;
    base-url = "http://localhost:7878";
    bind = {
      address = "0.0.0.0";
      port = 7878;
    };
    scheduler = {
      pool-size = 1;
    };
    jdbc = {
      url = "jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/docspell";
      user = "docspell";
      password = "docspell";
    };
  };

  # install docspell-restserver and enable the systemd service
  services.docspell-restserver = {
    enable = true;
    base-url = "http://localhost:7880";
    bind = {
      address = "0.0.0.0";
      port = 7880;
    };
    auth = {
      server-secret = "b64:EirgaudMyNvWg4TvxVGxTu-fgtrto4ETz--Hk9Pv2o4=";
    };
    backend = {
      signup = {
        mode = "invite";
        new-invite-password = "dsinvite2";
        invite-time = "30 days";
      };
      jdbc = {
        url = "jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/docspell";
        user = "docspell";
        password = "docspell";
      };
    };
  };

  # install postgresql and initially create user/database
  services.postgresql =
  let
    pginit = pkgs.writeText "pginit.sql" ''
      CREATE USER docspell WITH PASSWORD 'docspell' LOGIN CREATEDB;
      GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON ALL TABLES IN SCHEMA public TO docspell;
      GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON ALL SEQUENCES IN SCHEMA public TO docspell;
      CREATE DATABASE DOCSPELL OWNER 'docspell';
    '';
  in {
      enable = true;
      package = pkgs.postgresql_11;
      enableTCPIP = true;
      initialScript = pginit;
      port = 5432;
      authentication = ''
        host  all  all 0.0.0.0/0 md5
      '';
  };

  networking = {
    hostName = "docspellexample";
    firewall.allowedTCPPorts = [7880];
  };
}

You can also look at nix/test-vm.nix for another example.

Without Flakes

Of course, you can also use it without flakes. There is nix/pkg.nix which contains the derivation of both packages, docspell-restserver and docspell-joex. Just call it with your nixpkgs instance as usual:

let 
  repo = fetchurl {
    url = "https://github.com/eikek/docspell";
    sha256 = "sha256-X2mM+Z5s8Xm1E6zrZ0wcRaivLEvqbk5Dn+GSXkZHdLM=";
  };
  docspellPkgs = pkgs.callPackage (import "${repo}/nix/pkg.nix") {};
in
 #
 # use docspellPkgs.docspell-restserver or docspellPkgs.docspell-joex
 #

The same way import NixOS modules from nix/modules/{joex|server}.nix.

An alternative can be to use builtins.getFlake to fetch the flake and get access to its output. But this requires to use a flake enabled nix, which then defeats the idea of "not using flakes".