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Generate NixOS configuration modules.
Generate NixOS configuration modules.


This command is part of the <code>nixos-install-tools</code> package. It analyzes your hardware configuration and generates two files of:
This command is part of the {{nixos:package|nixos-install-tools}} package. It analyzes your hardware configuration and generates two files of:
* <code>/etc/nixos/configuration.nix</code> - the main system configuration file.
* <code>/etc/nixos/configuration.nix</code> - the main system configuration file.
* <code>/etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix</code> - a hardware-specific configuration file, including detected devices and modules.
* <code>/etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix</code> - a hardware-specific configuration file, including detected devices and modules.
For details on configuring the system configuration file, see [[Overview of the NixOS Linux distribution#Declarative Configuration]].


= Usage =
= Usage =
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</syntaxhighlight>
</syntaxhighlight>


= Hardware specific notes =
= Specifying specific hardware =
 
If you are using an SSD it may be useful to enable TRIM support as well as set filesystem flags to improve the SSD performance:
{{file|/etc/nixos/configuration.nix|nix|
<nowiki>
fileSystems."/".options = [ "noatime" "nodiratime" "discard" ];
</nowiki>
}}


A collection of hardware specific platforms with their config can be found at [https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware NixOS Hardware repository]
A collection of hardware specific platforms with their config can be found at [https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware NixOS Hardware repository].


[[Category:NixOS]]
[[Category:NixOS]]
[[Category:Configuration]]
[[Category:Configuration]]

Latest revision as of 18:00, 24 May 2025

Generate NixOS configuration modules.

This command is part of the nixos-install-tools package. It analyzes your hardware configuration and generates two files of:

  • /etc/nixos/configuration.nix - the main system configuration file.
  • /etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix - a hardware-specific configuration file, including detected devices and modules.

For details on configuring the system configuration file, see Overview of the NixOS Linux distribution#Declarative Configuration.

Usage

# nixos-generate-config

This will create configuration files based on the currently mounted system. This is typically used where NixOS is already installed. By default, nixos-generate-config will not overwrite an existing configuration.nix. To force overwrite an existing file, pass the --force option.

Generate configuration for a target root

To generate configuration files with a specific root directory (commonly used during installation):

# nixos-generate-config --root /mnt

This writes configuration files to /mnt/etc/nixos/.

Show hardware configuration

To print the detected hardware configuration to standard output without writing to disk:

# nixos-generate-config --show-hardware-config

Specifying specific hardware

A collection of hardware specific platforms with their config can be found at NixOS Hardware repository.