What survives a reboot
The system disk is a blank slate rebuilt at every boot. Only these directories are kept, on the encrypted volume, and bind-mounted back into place:
| Kept | Holds |
|---|---|
/home/notshared | LosOS cloud's data: your files, photos, database |
/home/shared | Room lent to the mesh (encrypted separately, unreadable while sharing is off) |
/var | LosOS Git's data, the box's state and secrets, the two clusters' state, logs |
/nix | The system itself, every version kept for the boot menu |
/etc/nixos | The box's own description: its disks, firmware mode, unlock mode, your settings |
/etc/keys | The disk key's recovery copy |
/etc/ssh | Host keys (there is no SSH server; the keys identify the box) |
/etc/rancher | The mesh membership's node password |
/etc/machine-id | The box's identity |
Everything else, including anything an attacker or a bug wrote anywhere else, is gone at 00:07.
Two things that are documents, not settings
The Look (background, veil, hand-written widgets) and the board layout
are kept under /var and in your browser respectively, so both survive, but
neither is part of the box's description and neither needs a rebuild to
change.
What a reinstall does
Wipes all of it. See Reset and reinstall.