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Filename	Latest commit message	Latest commit date
Jeffrey C. Ollie e196577f57 Package INN 2.7.4 as a Nix flake Build INN (InterNetNews) from the upstream release tarball rather than the Git tag: the tarball already ships the generated configure script, the innfeed lexer and parser, and the POD-derived man pages, so the tree needs no autoconf/bison/flex/libtool bootstrap. State that cannot live in the Nix store is compiled in as absolute paths (/etc/news, /var/lib/news, /var/log/news, /run/news, /var/spool/news), all exposed as derivation arguments alongside the news user/group and the sendmail path. `make install` writes $out, $sysconfdir and the state directories in one pass, so it is redirected through DESTDIR and split afterwards, with the sample config and seed database kept under share/inn. Helper programs are pinned to absolute store paths via configure variables, since autoconf otherwise leaves AWK as a bare "gawk" for $PATH to resolve at runtime. OWNER/ROWNER are cleared because install-sh would otherwise chown to news:news, which fails for an unprivileged builder. Optional support for Berkeley DB, Kerberos, OpenSSL, PAM, Perl, Python, SASL, SQLite, systemd and zlib is on by default and individually toggleable. Cancel-Lock is off because libcanlock is not in nixpkgs. powerpc64le-linux and x86_64-freebsd are filtered out of the system list: nixpkgs cannot evaluate the dependency closure there (GnuPG reaches pandoc and GHC has no bootstrap compiler on the former, CPython hits an infinite recursion on the latter). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_014HXGpcMTjxCDuPmjEc5U6h		2026-08-30 21:04:41 -05:00
LICENSES	Package INN 2.7.4 as a Nix flake	2026-08-30 21:04:41 -05:00
.gitignore	Package INN 2.7.4 as a Nix flake	2026-08-30 21:04:41 -05:00
flake.lock	Package INN 2.7.4 as a Nix flake	2026-08-30 21:04:41 -05:00
flake.nix	Package INN 2.7.4 as a Nix flake	2026-08-30 21:04:41 -05:00
package.nix	Package INN 2.7.4 as a Nix flake	2026-08-30 21:04:41 -05:00
README.md	Package INN 2.7.4 as a Nix flake	2026-08-30 21:04:41 -05:00
REUSE.toml	Package INN 2.7.4 as a Nix flake	2026-08-30 21:04:41 -05:00

README.md

nix-inn

A Nix flake packaging INN (InterNetNews), the Usenet news server maintained by ISC.

Canonical repository: https://git.ocjtech.us/jeff/nix-inn.git

Usage

nix build .#inn
./result/bin/innconfval -v

Or from another flake:

{
  inputs.inn.url = "git+https://git.ocjtech.us/jeff/nix-inn.git";

  # ...

  environment.systemPackages = [ inn.packages.${system}.inn ];
}

The flake exposes only packages.<system>.inn (and default, an alias). It covers every system in lib.systems.flakeExposed except powerpc64le-linux and x86_64-freebsd, where nixpkgs cannot evaluate INN's dependency closure — GnuPG reaches pandoc and GHC has no bootstrap compiler on the former, and the CPython expression hits an infinite recursion on the latter. Only x86_64-linux is built and tested regularly.

Source

The derivation builds the upstream release tarball (https://github.com/InterNetNews/inn/releases/download/2.7.4/inn-2.7.4.tar.gz), not the Git tag. The tarball is already bootstrapped: it ships the generated configure script, the innfeed lexer and parser, and the POD-derived man pages, so autoconf, bison, flex and libtool are not needed to build it.

What gets installed

Path	Contents
`bin/`	76 programs — `innd`, `nnrpd`, `innfeed`, `ctlinnd`, the expiry and overview tools — plus the `auth/`, `control/`, `filter/` and `rnews.libexec/` subdirectories
`lib/`	`libinn`, `libinnhist`, `libinnstorage`, `innshellvars` and the `INN::` Perl modules
`include/inn/`	Public headers
`share/man/`	126 man pages in sections 1, 3, 5 and 8
`share/doc/inn/`	Upstream documentation, including `INSTALL` and `HACKING`
`share/inn/conf/`	The 35 sample configuration files that upstream would install into `/etc/news`
`share/inn/db/`	The minimal `active`, `active.times`, `history` and `newsgroups` that `make install` seeds

Optional support is compiled in for Berkeley DB, Kerberos, OpenSSL, PAM, Perl, Python, SASL, SQLite, systemd and zlib. Cancel-Lock is disabled because libcanlock is not in nixpkgs.

Configuration

INN cannot keep its state in the Nix store, so the state locations are compiled in as absolute paths and all of them are derivation arguments:

Argument	Default
`confDir`	`/etc/news`
`dbDir`	`/var/lib/news`
`logDir`	`/var/log/news`
`runDir`	`/run/news`
`spoolDir`	`/var/spool/news`
`sendmailPath`	`/run/wrappers/bin/sendmail`
`newsUser` / `newsGroup`	`news`
`newsMaster`	`usenet`

The optional dependencies are toggled with withBerkeleyDB, withKerberos, withOpenSSL, withPAM, withPerl, withPython, withSASL, withSQLite, withSystemd and withZlib, all on by default (withPAM and withSystemd only on Linux). Override them the usual way:

pkgs.inn.override {
  withPython = false;
  spoolDir = "/srv/news";
}

Deploying

The package is only the binaries; it does not set a system up. Running INN still requires that you:

create the news user and group;
create confDir and the state directories, owned by that user;
copy share/inn/conf into /etc/news and edit it — in particular inn.conf, newsfeeds and incoming.conf;
seed /var/lib/news from share/inn/db on a first install;
arrange for innd to be started and for news.daily to run from cron.

Upstream ships no systemd units, so there is nothing to enable; you have to write your own. share/doc/inn/INSTALL covers the rest.

Licensing

The packaging in this repository is MIT. INN itself is ISC-licensed as a whole, with a few files under GPL-2.0-or-later and a handful in the public domain; see share/doc/inn/LICENSE. The repository is REUSE compliant.