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.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-This command analyzes your hardware configuration and generates two files of:
+Generate NixOS configuration modules.
-configuration.nix
-hardware-configuration.nix
-Notes:
+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/hardware-configuration.nix</code> - a hardware-specific configuration file, including detected devices and modules.
-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:
+For details on configuring the system configuration file, see [[Overview of the NixOS Linux distribution#Declarative Configuration]].
-fileSystems."/".options = [ "noatime" "nodiratime" "discard" ];
+= Usage =
-(apologies have no idea how to format the above...)
+<syntaxHighlight lang=console>
+# nixos-generate-config
+</syntaxHighlight>
+This will create configuration files based on the currently mounted system. This is typically used where NixOS is already installed. By default, <code>nixos-generate-config</code> will not overwrite an existing <code>configuration.nix</code>. To force overwrite an existing file, pass the <code>--force</code> option.
+== Generate configuration for a target root ==
+To generate configuration files with a specific root directory (commonly used during installation):
+<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
+# nixos-generate-config --root /mnt
+</syntaxhighlight>
+This writes configuration files to <code>/mnt/etc/nixos/</code>.
+== Show hardware configuration ==
+To print the detected hardware configuration to standard output without writing to disk:
+<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
+# nixos-generate-config --show-hardware-config
+</syntaxhighlight>
+= Specifying specific hardware =
+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:Configuration]]