nixpkgs/nixos/modules/services/misc/taskserver/doc.xml

<chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
    xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
    version="5.0"
    xml:id="module-taskserver">

  <title>Taskserver</title>

  <para>
    Taskserver is the server component of
    <link xlink:href="https://taskwarrior.org/">Taskwarrior</link>, a free and
    open source todo list application.
  </para>

  <para>
    <emphasis>Upstream documentation:</emphasis>
    <link xlink:href="https://taskwarrior.org/docs/#taskd"/>
  </para>

  <section>
    <title>Configuration</title>

    <para>
      Taskserver does all of its authentication via TLS using client
      certificates, so you either need to roll your own CA or purchase a
      certificate from a known CA, which allows creation of client
      certificates.

      These certificates are usually advertised as
      <quote>server certificates</quote>.
    </para>

    <para>
      So in order to make it easier to handle your own CA, there is a helper
      tool called <command>nixos-taskserver</command> which manages the custom
      CA along with Taskserver organisations, users and groups.
    </para>

    <para>
      While the client certificates in Taskserver only authenticate whether a
      user is allowed to connect, every user has its own UUID which identifies
      it as an entity.
    </para>

    <para>
      With <command>nixos-taskserver</command> the client certificate is created
      along with the UUID of the user, so it handles all of the credentials
      needed in order to setup the Taskwarrior client to work with a Taskserver.
    </para>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>The nixos-taskserver tool</title>

    <para>
      Because Taskserver by default only provides scripts to setup users
      imperatively, the <command>nixos-taskserver</command> tool is used for
      addition and deletion of organisations along with users and groups defined
      by <option>services.taskserver.organisations</option> and as well for
      imperative set up.
    </para>

    <para>
      The tool is designed to not interfere if the command is used to manually
      set up some organisations, users or groups.
    </para>

    <para>
      For example if you add a new organisation using
      <command>nixos-taskserver org add foo</command>, the organisation is not
      modified and deleted no matter what you define in
      <option>services.taskserver.organisations</option>, even if you're adding
      the same organisation in that option.
    </para>

    <para>
      The tool is modelled to imitate the official <command>taskd</command>
      command, documentation for each subcommand can be shown by using the
      <option>--help</option> switch.
    </para>
  </section>
  <section>
    <title>Declarative/automatic CA management</title>

    <para>
      Everything is done according to what you specify in the module options,
      however in order to set up a Taskwarrior client for synchronisation with a
      Taskserver instance, you have to transfer the keys and certificates to the
      client machine.
    </para>

    <para>
      This is done using
      <command>nixos-taskserver user export $orgname $username</command> which
      is printing a shell script fragment to stdout which can either be used
      verbatim or adjusted to import the user on the client machine.
    </para>

    <para>
      For example, let's say you have the following configuration:
<screen>
{
  services.taskserver.enable = true;
  services.taskserver.fqdn = "server";
  services.taskserver.listenHost = "::";
  services.taskserver.organisations.my-company.users = [ "alice" ];
}
</screen>
      This creates an organisation called <literal>my-company</literal> with the
      user <literal>alice</literal>.
    </para>

    <para>
      Now in order to import the <literal>alice</literal> user to another
      machine <literal>alicebox</literal>, all we need to do is something like
      this:
<screen>
$ ssh server nixos-taskserver user export my-company alice | sh
</screen>
      Of course, if no SSH daemon is available on the server you can also copy
      &amp; paste it directly into a shell.
    </para>

    <para>
      After this step the user should be set up and you can start synchronising
      your tasks for the first time with <command>task sync init</command> on
      <literal>alicebox</literal>.
    </para>

    <para>
      Subsequent synchronisation requests merely require the command
      <command>task sync</command> after that stage.
    </para>
  </section>
  <section>
    <title>Manual CA management</title>

    <para>
      If you set any options within
      <option>service.taskserver.pki.manual.*</option>,
      <command>nixos-taskserver</command> won't issue certificates, but you can
      still use it for adding or removing user accounts.
    </para>
  </section>
</chapter>