agenix/doc/tutorial.md

Tutorial

1. The system you want to deploy secrets to should already exist and have sshd running on it so that it has generated SSH host keys in /etc/ssh/.

2. Make a directory to store secrets and agenix-rules.nix file for listing secrets and their public keys (This file is not imported into your NixOS configuration. It is only used for the agenix CLI.):

   $ mkdir secrets
   $ cd secrets
   $ touch agenix-rules.nix
   

3. Add public keys to agenix-rules.nix file (hint: use ssh-keyscan or GitHub (for example, https://github.com/ryantm.keys)):

   let
     user1 = "ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIL0idNvgGiucWgup/mP78zyC23uFjYq0evcWdjGQUaBH";
     user2 = "ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAILI6jSq53F/3hEmSs+oq9L4TwOo1PrDMAgcA1uo1CCV/";
     users = [ user1 user2 ];
   
     system1 = "ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIPJDyIr/FSz1cJdcoW69R+NrWzwGK/+3gJpqD1t8L2zE";
     system2 = "ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIKzxQgondgEYcLpcPdJLrTdNgZ2gznOHCAxMdaceTUT1";
     systems = [ system1 system2 ];
   in
   {
     "secret1.age".publicKeys = [ user1 system1 ];
     "secret2.age".publicKeys = users ++ systems;
   }
   

4. Edit secret files (these instructions assume your SSH private key is in ~/.ssh/):

   $ agenix -e secret1.age
   

5. Add secret to a NixOS module config:

   {
     age.secrets.secret1.file = ../secrets/secret1.age;
   }
   

6. Use the secret in your config:

   {
     users.users.user1 = {
       isNormalUser = true;
       passwordFile = config.age.secrets.secret1.path;
     };
   }
   

7. NixOS rebuild or use your deployment tool like usual.

   The secret will be decrypted to the value of config.age.secrets.secret1.path (/run/agenix/secret1 by default).