photogallery

A minimal static photo gallery with an Atom feed and an upload API.

Contributors

• Santhosh Raju — originated the ideas for the edit/delete ("manage") capability and the configurable default view (-default-view, timeline or grid as the site root). Both landed here as independent implementations building on that work.

How it works

1. Drop photo.jpg + photo.toml into the content directory (or upload via the web UI at /upload).
2. The binary watches the directory and rebuilds the static site on any change.
3. nginx serves public/ and proxies /upload to the local API, secured with htpasswd.

For each photo the generator produces a 600×600 square thumbnail for the grid and an aspect-preserved medium JPEG (longest side 1600) for the detail page. The original file stays reachable from a download link on the detail page. Regeneration is skipped when the destination is at least as new as the source, so editing one sidecar doesn't reprocess every photo.

The upload page reads DateTimeOriginal from a JPEG's EXIF (or falls back to the file's modification time) and prefills the date field, which stays editable before submitting.

Sidecar format

caption = "Tempelhof at sunrise"
date    = "2026-06-14"

If no .toml is present the filename is used as the caption and today's date as the date.

---

Using as a NixOS flake module

1. Add to your flake inputs

inputs = {
  nixpkgs.url        = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
  photogallery.url   = "github:youruser/photogallery";
};

2. Import the module

nixosConfigurations.myhost = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
  modules = [
    inputs.photogallery.nixosModules.default
    ./configuration.nix
  ];
};

3. Configure

services.photogallery = {
  enable   = true;
  baseURL  = "https://photos.yourdomain.tld";

  # Optional: identity shown on the header and copyright footer
  author  = "Ada Lovelace";
  handle  = "@ada@example.com";
  bio     = "Photos from the field.";
  bioAlt  = "";  # optional secondary line in the alt-script font

  # Optional: swap fonts
  fontsURL    = "https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=EB+Garamond:wght@400;600;700&family=Manjari:wght@400;700&display=swap";
  serifFamily = "EB Garamond";
  mlFamily    = "Manjari";

  # Optional: built-in nginx vhost
  nginx = {
    enable       = true;
    domain       = "photos.yourdomain.tld";
    htpasswdFile = "/etc/nginx/.htpasswd-gallery";
  };
};

Create the htpasswd file:

nix-shell -p apacheHttpd --run \
  "htpasswd -c /etc/nginx/.htpasswd-gallery youruser"

Available options

Option	Default	Description
enable	false	Enable the service
baseURL	—	Public URL, no trailing slash
contentDir	/var/lib/photogallery/content	Images and .toml sidecars
outputDir	/var/lib/photogallery/public	Generated site output
port	8080	Upload API port (localhost only)
author	Ashik Salahudeen	Name shown on the header, photo pages and copyright footer
handle	@puttaalu@inflo.ws	Handle line under the author name
bio	Personal photo journal.	Primary bio line
bioAlt	Malayalam default	Secondary bio line in the alt-script font ("" to omit)
fontsURL	Crimson Pro + Manjari	Stylesheet URL loading both web fonts
serifFamily	Crimson Pro	CSS font-family for the primary serif
mlFamily	Manjari	CSS font-family for the alt-script bio
nginx.enable	false	Configure an nginx vhost
nginx.domain	—	Domain for the vhost
nginx.htpasswdFile	—	htpasswd file for /upload
nginx.enableACME	true	Enable Let's Encrypt

---

Bootstrap (first build)

buildGoModule needs a go.sum and the correct vendorHash.

# 1. Generate go.sum
go mod tidy

# 2. Commit go.sum
git add go.sum && git commit -m "add go.sum"

# 3. Get the vendorHash — this will fail and print the correct hash
nix build
# error: hash mismatch ... got: sha256-XXXXX...

# 4. Paste the hash into flake.nix, then build again
nix build

Uploading via curl

curl -u user:password \
     -F "image=@photo.jpg" \
     -F "caption=Tempelhof at sunrise" \
     -F "date=2026-06-14" \
     https://photos.yourdomain.tld/upload

Or open https://photos.yourdomain.tld/upload in a browser.