nixos-servers/docs/plans/nixos-improvements.md

NixOS Infrastructure Improvements

This document contains planned improvements to the NixOS infrastructure that are not directly part of the automated deployment pipeline.

DNS Automation

Goal: Automatically generate DNS entries from host configurations

Approach: Leverage Nix to generate zone file entries from flake host configurations

Since most hosts use static IPs defined in their NixOS configurations, we can extract this information and automatically generate A records. This keeps DNS in sync with the actual host configs.

Tasks:

• Add optional CNAME field to host configurations
  • Add networking.cnames = [ "alias1" "alias2" ] or similar option
  • Document in host configuration template
• Create Nix function to extract DNS records from all hosts
  • Parse each host's networking.hostName and IP configuration
  • Collect any defined CNAMEs
  • Generate zone file fragment with A and CNAME records
• Integrate auto-generated records into zone files
  • Keep manual entries separate (for non-flake hosts/services)
  • Include generated fragment in main zone file
  • Add comments showing which records are auto-generated
• Update zone file serial number automatically
• Test zone file validity after generation
• Either:
  • Automatically trigger DNS server reload (Ansible)
  • Or document manual step: merge to master, run upgrade on ns1/ns2

Deliverable: DNS A records and CNAMEs automatically generated from host configs