Packaging for NixOS

[Jaculabilis]

Thanks for making this! I run NixOS on my media server, and the latest NixOS release includes an Immich module that I'm going to use. I saw IPP on /r/selfhosted and wanted to use it, so I figured out how to package it for NixOS. Before contributing it to nixpkgs, I thought it would be polite (1) to check in with you, the author, in case you'd prefer IPP not to be added to nixpkgs; and (2) to offer to upstream some of the patches I had to apply.

The nixpkgs branch that I would PR is here, if you're curious. It includes some patches that would be applied, which are derived from my forked IPP repo. In particular, the three changes are:

• Add a bin property to package.json (npm docs). I know that in nixpkgs, this is needed to get a bin/immich-public-proxy executable; I'm not sure it it would do anything in the build workflow that you have.
• Allow the port to be set by IPP_PORT envvar instead of always 3000. In Docker this doesn't matter since you can remap the port, but the NixOS module runs it outside a container, so it needs a different way to change the port.
• Add app/package-lock.json. Nix requires a lockfile to do a deterministic build. I noted that you added package-lock.json to the .gitignore in 690bd3f, which I assume is because you are using Docker images to provide the same build on different machines. Personally, I would recommend having a lockfile even with Docker, but if your workflow requires it be absent, I can work around that.

If you're open to it, I'll create PRs for these changes and adjust my Nix packaging for the updated upstream.

[alangrainger]

Sounds great! Please do submit the PR.

The only one I'm not certain about is the bin property, simply because I don't know what (if any) effect it might have on the build. But I can easily test that.

[Jaculabilis]

Based on the npm docs, it only matters when the package is installed globally or as a dependency.

When this package is installed globally, that file will be either linked inside the global bins directory or a cmd (Windows Command File) will be created which executes the specified file in the bin field, so it is available to run by name or name.cmd (on Windows PowerShell). When this package is installed as a dependency in another package, the file will be linked where it will be available to that package either directly by npm exec or by name in other scripts when invoking them via npm run-script.

IPP in Docker is built and passed to a Node server rather than being installed globally, and it isn't uploaded to npm so it can't even be a dependency of another package. So for all current purposes, bin should effectively be a no-op.

[Jaculabilis]

Opened #35, #36, and #37. When those are resolved and there's a new version, I'll update the Nix packaging.

[Jaculabilis]

NixOS packaging review is underway at NixOS/nixpkgs#362907. Opened #40 for one more patch.

[alangrainger]

Merged, thanks. That's quite exciting!

Do you need me to make a new release incorporating those changes, or is it fine with them just in the main branch?

[Jaculabilis]

A new release would be good. Let me confirm with the reviewer first that there aren't any other changes that could result in patches.

[Jaculabilis]

The reviewer hasn't gotten back to me yet, which might be because of the holidays. I'm going to optimistically assume I won't need any more patches to IPP and any remaining changes will be in the Nix code, so feel free to cut a new release at your leisure.

[alangrainger]

v.1.5.4 released to incorporate the above PRs.

[Jaculabilis]

Thank you! I'll update the packaging PR as time permits around holiday events.

[Jaculabilis]

The package and module are merged! It should be available in nixpkgs-unstable now, and in the 25.05 release at some point. Thanks for your help!