Re: [PATCH] services: nginx: Allow for server extensions.

[Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name>]

On Wed, Dec 02, 2015 at 10:07:23AM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> David Thompson <dthompson2@worcester.edu> skribis:
> 
> > Looking for some feedback on my first stab at making the nginx service
> > extensible.  With this extension mechanism, future web applications
> > (such as GNU MediaGoblin) that use nginx as a front-end web server will
> > be able to extend nginx with the server configuration that they need in
> > order to work.
> 
> Excellent!
> 
> > Here's a useless service that adds nginx configuration to serve the
> > contents of /tmp:
> >
> >     (define server
> >       (plain-file "foo.conf"
> >                   "
> >     server {
> >       listen 80;
> >       root /tmp;
> >       index index.html;
> >       server_name dthompson.us;
> >     }
> >     "))
> 
> Do you think it would make sense to provide Scheme bindings for those
> ‘server’ configuration snippets, or would we lose too much
> expressiveness?

I think you might lose too much, although I don't use GuixSD so I
don't know if there are other programs that are configured through
Scheme bindings. I know that I don't like the Nix bindings for systemd
in NixOS. They can't keep up with the pace of development in systemd and
provide a limited set of features.

> 
> > From 108db2d183526c42b53060e55f7fb292b53663cb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> > From: David Thompson <dthompson2@worcester.edu>
> > Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2015 08:49:08 -0500
> > Subject: [PATCH] services: nginx: Allow for server extensions.
> >
> > * gnu/services/web.scm (<nginx-configuration>)[servers]: New field.
> >   (nginx-configuration-servers): New accessor.
> >   (default-nginx-config): Delete.
> >   (nginx-configuration-file*): New procedure.
> >   (nginx-activation): Perform the syntax check on the full computed
> >   configuration file.
> >   (nginx-dmd-service): Use the full computed configuration file when
> >   starting the service.
> >   (extend-nginx): New procedure.
> >   (nginx-service-type): Specify extension procedures.
> >   (nginx-service): Add #:servers argument.
> 
> [...]
> 
> > +(define (nginx-configuration-file* config)
> 
> ‘nginx-configuration->file’ maybe?
> 
> Otherwise LGTM!
> 
> As an exercise, and while waiting for Chris to finish packaging
> MediaGoblin ;-), it might make sense to try to use nginx in
> ‘guix-publish-service’ or a variant thereof.
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> Ludo’.
>