How to Install Typemill on NixOS

Typemill is a flat-file CMS that works seamlessly to turn your Markdown files into HTML pages. For those using NixOS, installing Typemill is a breeze. Follow these instructions.

Prerequisites

Before you can install Typemill on NixOS, ensure you have a few things in place:

  • A NixOS installation.
  • Superuser privileges to execute the commands outlined in the instructions.
  • Reliable internet connectivity to download the required packages.

Steps

1. Download Typemill

Begin by downloading Typemill into your preferred directory. You can use curl to download it. 

sudo curl -sL https://get.typemill.net | sh

This will download Typemill as a ZIP file.

2. Extract the Files

Once downloaded, navigate to the directory containing the Typemill ZIP file and extract it using the following command:

sudo unzip typemill.zip -d /opt/

This will extract the Typemill files into the /opt/ folder.

3. Create a System User

Create a new system user for Typemill with the following command:

sudo useradd --system --shell /sbin/nologin typemill

4. Set Permissions

Assign the typemill user ownership of the /opt/typemill folder to allow them full access to it:

sudo chown -R typemill:typemill /opt/typemill

5. Create a Typemill Service

Create a new Typemill service to manage the start/stop actions using the following command:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/typemill.service

Add the following contents to the file:

[Unit]
Description=Typemill
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=typemill
Group=typemill
WorkingDirectory=/opt/typemill
ExecStart=/opt/typemill/bin/typemill start
ExecStop=/opt/typemill/bin/typemill stop
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save the file.

6. Reload Systemd

Reload systemd with the following command to reflect the changes you made to the system:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

7. Start the Service

To start the Typemill service, execute the following command:

sudo systemctl start typemill

8. Enable the Service

To start the Typemill service at boot, run the following command:

sudo systemctl enable typemill

9. Verify Installation

To ensure that Typemill is running, navigate to the Typemill URL in your browser. The Typemill dashboard should load up, signifying that the CMS is running successfully.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have shown how to install Typemill on NixOS. With a few simple commands, you can have your flat-file CMS up and running in no time.