From 8b1774130bb9de109f9ea99597f4348f334fbb27 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Kayos <kayos@sulkta.com>
Date: Wed, 6 May 2026 22:55:17 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] fix: bind /nix to /mnt/cache, NOT docker-managed volume

A docker-managed named volume lives at /var/lib/docker/volumes/,
which is INSIDE docker.img (a 200 GB loop file shared with all
images, container layers, and every other docker volume on the
host). The Plutarch + haskell-nix closure for Liqwid-Labs/agora
is tens of GB.

Running nix develop against agora ONCE was enough to fill docker.img
to 100% (196/200 GB used, 2 GB free). Every container on Lucy was
about to start failing writes. Recovery: kill nix process, docker
compose down, free 66 GB of BuildKit cache via `docker builder
prune -a`, switch /nix to /mnt/cache bind mount (88+ GB free on
that pool, completely separate from docker.img).

Bind mount caveat: bare bind to an empty host dir shadows the
image's /nix install (the previous bug we caught with the
named-volume fix). One-time seed required:
  mkdir -p /mnt/cache/appdata/crafting-table/nix
  chown 1000:1000 /mnt/cache/appdata/crafting-table/nix
  docker create --name ct-seed crafting-table:local
  docker cp ct-seed:/nix/. /mnt/cache/appdata/crafting-table/nix/
  docker rm ct-seed

After seed, the bind mount works because the host path has the
nix tree already populated. Subsequent docker compose up -d picks
up the populated /nix and `nix --version` works in-container.
---
 compose.yml | 33 +++++++++++++++++++++++----------
 1 file changed, 23 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-)

diff --git a/compose.yml b/compose.yml
index 1c4324d..ce0f1cf 100644
--- a/compose.yml
+++ b/compose.yml
@@ -35,19 +35,32 @@ services:
       - /mnt/user/appdata/crafting-table/data:/data
       - /mnt/user/appdata/crafting-table/workspace:/workspace
       - /mnt/user/appdata/crafting-table/caches:/caches
-      # Nix store — Docker-managed volume (NOT bind mount) so the image's
-      # pre-installed /nix tree gets seeded into the volume on first up.
-      # A bare bind mount to an empty host dir would shadow the image's
-      # /nix and leave `nix` unfindable inside the container.
-      # Persists haskell-nix downloads (multi-GB Plutarch / IOG flake
-      # closures) across container rebuilds.
-      - crafting-table-nix:/nix
+      # Nix store — bind mount to /mnt/cache (88+ GB free) NOT a bare
+      # docker-managed volume. A docker-managed volume lives at
+      # /var/lib/docker/volumes/, which is INSIDE the docker.img loop
+      # file (200 GB allocated, shared with all images + container layers
+      # + every other volume). The Plutarch + haskell-nix closure is
+      # tens of GB; running nix develop against Liqwid-Labs/agora once
+      # was enough to fill docker.img to 100% and break every container
+      # on Lucy. Caught 2026-05-06 mid-build.
+      #
+      # Bind to /mnt/cache so Plutarch + haskell-nix closures live on
+      # the cache pool, not docker.img. Pre-seed the host path with the
+      # image's stock /nix install ONCE at container init (or by
+      # `docker create + docker cp` when the path is empty) — bare bind
+      # mount to an empty host dir shadows the image's /nix install.
+      #
+      # If the bind path is missing or empty when you `docker compose
+      # up -d` for the first time, do this once:
+      #   mkdir -p /mnt/cache/appdata/crafting-table/nix
+      #   chown 1000:1000 /mnt/cache/appdata/crafting-table/nix
+      #   docker create --name ct-seed crafting-table:local
+      #   docker cp ct-seed:/nix/. /mnt/cache/appdata/crafting-table/nix/
+      #   docker rm ct-seed
+      - /mnt/cache/appdata/crafting-table/nix:/nix
     networks: [sulkta]
     restart: unless-stopped
 
-volumes:
-  crafting-table-nix:
-
 networks:
   sulkta:
     external: true