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This guide describes various methods for installing Nix.
This guide describes various '''more advanced''' methods for installing [[Nix]] on an ''existing'' operating system. For installation of [[NixOS]], see [[NixOS Installation Guide]].


== Single user install ==
Please take a look at https://nixos.org/download.html first for basic installation instructions and read the relevant section in the Nix manual if you want to know more about how the install process works: https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/#ch-installing-binary.


To install Nix from any Linux distribution, use the following two commands (assumes you have the permission to use sudo and you are logged in as the user you want to install Nix for).
== Single-user install ==


=== Stable Nix ===
To install stable Nix from any Linux distribution, use the following two commands. (Note: This assumes you have the permission to use <code>sudo</code>, and you are logged in as the user you want to install Nix for.)
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
$ sudo install -d -m755 -o $(id -u) -g $(id -g) /nix
$ curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
</syntaxHighlight>
Then don't forget to reboot or run the command provided at the end of the installation script to make nix available in your system:
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
$ sudo install -d -m755 -o $USER -g $USER /nix
$ source $HOME/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/nix.sh
$ curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
</syntaxHighlight>
</syntaxHighlight>


After that being done, you can use all Nix commands as a normal user without any special permissions (for example by using <code>sudo</code>)
You may want to put this file directly in your ~/.bashrc or similar, so Nix would be available in any newly created shell.
 
When using another shell like [https://fishshell.com Fish], you should ignore the previous procedure and use the [https://github.com/jorgebucaran/fisher Fisher] plugin [https://github.com/lilyball/nix-env.fish Nix-env].
 
After that being done, you can use all Nix commands as a normal user without any special permissions (for example by using <code>sudo</code>).
 
==== Troubleshooting ====
 
===== User namespaces =====
If the installation fails with the following error:
<pre>
installing 'nix-2.2.2'
error: cloning builder process: Invalid argument
error: unable to start build process
</pre>
it is possible that user namepaces are disabled by your distribution. Since Nix 2.2, the sandbox is
enabled by default on Linux which requires user namespaces.
If possible enable them; the procedure depends on the distribution. In last resort, you can disable the sandbox: create the file <code>~/.config/nix/nix.conf</code> and include the line <code>sandbox = false</code>.
 
=== Unstable Nix ===
 
To install unstable Nix, you can use the [https://github.com/numtide/nix-unstable-installer unofficial installer by @numtide]. Instructions are available in the README of the repository.
 
== Nix store on an unusual filesystem ==
 
=== Case insensitive filesystem on Linux ===
 
Most Linux filesystems are case sensitive. If your nix store is on a case insensitive filesystem like CIFS on Linux, derivation outputs cannot contain two files differing only in case in the same directory. Nix can work around this by adding <code>use-case-hack = true</code> to your nix configuration (<code>/etc/nix/nix.conf</code> for a multi-user-install or <code>~/.config/nix/nix.conf</code> otherwise). Unfortunately, this will change the hash of some derivations and thus make the binary cache useless.
 
=== NFS ===
 
With a Nix store residing on an NFS filesystem, concurrent use of Nix may corrupt Nix's sqlite database. To prevent this, set <code>use-sqlite-wal = false</code>. Since [https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/5475 nix/pull/5475 nix/pull/5475] and it's backports to the stable branches, a patch that was previously described in this wiki is no longer needed for using Nix on WSL (Windows' Subsystem for Linux) and NFS filesystems.


== Installing without root permissions ==
== Installing without root permissions ==


By using [https://github.com/lethalman/nix-user-chroot nix-user-chroot] or [https://github.com/proot-me/PRoot PRoot]
By using [https://github.com/nix-community/nix-user-chroot nix-user-chroot] or [https://github.com/proot-me/PRoot PRoot], you can use Nix on systems where you have no permission to create the `/nix` directory.
you can use Nix on systems, where you have no permission to create `/nix`.
nix-user-chroot is the preferred option. However, it might not run on older Linux kernels, or kernels without user namespace support.
<code>nix-user-chroot</code> is the preferred and faster option. However it might not run on older linux kernels
With the following command, you can test whether your system supports user namespaces
or kernels without user namespace support. With the following command you can test
for unprivileged users:
whether your system support user namespaces:


<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
$ unshare --user --pid echo YES
$ unshare --user --pid echo YES
YES
</syntaxHighlight>
</syntaxHighlight>


The output should be <code>YES</code>.  
The output should be <code>YES</code>.  
If the command is absent an alternative is to check the kernel compile options.
If the command is absent, an alternative is to check the kernel compile options:


<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
$ zgrep CONFIG_USER_NS /proc/config.gz
$ zgrep CONFIG_USER_NS /proc/config.gz
# On some systems like Debian or Ubuntu the kernel configuration is in a different place
CONFIG_USER_NS=y
$ grep CONFIG_USER_NS /boot/config-$(uname -r)
</syntaxHighlight>
</syntaxHighlight>


If the output of this command is <code>CONFIG_USER_NS=y</code> your system supports user namespaces.
On some systems, like Debian or Ubuntu, the kernel configuration is in a different place, so instead use:
 
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
$ grep CONFIG_USER_NS /boot/config-$(uname -r)
CONFIG_USER_NS=y
</syntaxHighlight>
 
If the output of this command is <code>CONFIG_USER_NS=y</code>, then your system supports user namespaces.


=== nix-user-chroot ===
=== nix-user-chroot ===


<code>nix-user-chroot</code> will create an environment, in which you can bind mount an directory to <code>/nix</code>.
[https://github.com/nix-community/nix-user-chroot nix-user-chroot] is the preferred method to install use nix on systems without <code>/nix</code>. It also requires user namespaces to be enabled on the system.
<code>nix-user-chroot</code> will create an environment in which you can bind mount a directory to <code>/nix</code>.
The mountpoint will be only visible within this environment.
The mountpoint will be only visible within this environment.


<code>nix-user-chroot</code> can be build the following way. This assumes a c compiler and make is installed.
There are [https://github.com/nix-community/nix-user-chroot/releases pre-build static binaries]
and the readme also contains the instructions to build from [https://github.com/nix-community/nix-user-chroot#build-from-source source] (assuming rustc and cargo to be installed).
 
In this example, the Nix store will be installed to <code>~/.nix</code>.


<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
$ git clone https://github.com/lethalman/nix-user-chroot.git
$ mkdir -m 0755 ~/.nix
$ cd nix-user-chroot
$ nix-user-chroot ~/.nix bash -c 'curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh'
$ make
</syntaxHighlight>
</syntaxHighlight>


The last step created an executable called <code>nix-user-chroot</code>.
Note that you can only use Nix and the installed programs within the shell started by <code>nix-user-chroot</code>:


<code>nix-user-chroot</code> can be used to install nix.
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
In this example the nix store will be installed to <code>~/.nix</code>:
$ nix-user-chroot ~/.nix bash
</syntaxHighlight>
 
=== PRoot ===
 
==== Obtaining PRoot ====
Precompiled PRoot binaries for every commit can be downloaded from [https://gitlab.com/proot/proot/pipelines here] under the job artifacts.  Make sure you set the executable bit of binaries you download.
 
Alternatively, if you have another machine with nix installed, you can build static binaries as follows:
* create a file <code>proot.nix</code>:
<syntaxHighlight lang="nix">
with import <nixpkgs> {};
pkgsStatic.proot.override { enablePython = false; }
</syntaxHighlight>
* build it:
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
$ nix-build proot.nix
</syntaxHighlight>
The executable is to be found in <code>result/bin/proot</code>.
 
If nix builds within proot fail with something like "no such file or directory" while the files referenced do exist, you can set <code>PROOT_NO_SECCOMP=1</code> in your environment or try termux's [https://github.com/termux/proot fork] of PRoot.
 
==== Installing nix ====
* If you have user namespaces enabled, you should prefer using nix-user-choot to PRoot. So we can safely assume that if you got to this point in the page, you don't have user namespaces. Therefore you must disable the sandbox. Add the line
{{bc|<nowiki>
sandbox = false</nowiki>
}}
to <code>~/.config/nix/nix.conf</code>.
 
* Create the folder where the nix store is to be located: in this example <code>~/.nix</code>:
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
$ mkdir ~/.nix
</syntaxHighlight>


* Make sure PRoot is in PATH and use is to obtain a shell where <code>/nix</code> exists:
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
$ mkdir -m 0755 ~/.nix
$ proot -b ~/.nix:/nix
$ ./nix-user-chroot/nix-user-chroot ~/.nix bash
</syntaxHighlight>
 
* In this new shell, Nix can be installed:
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
$ curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
</syntaxHighlight>
 
Note that you can only use Nix and the installed programs within the shell started by PRoot.
 
==== Troubleshooting ====
 
PRoot uses ptrace to capture and modify system calls. It happens that new system calls are created which proot does not shim yet. If you run into issues, check if:
 
* you have the latest proot
 
* the system calls being used are supported by proot (TODO: how to list and diff with sysnums.list?)
 
Since ptrace only allows one tracer to attach to a process at a time, you cant strace your process while in proot. One suggestion is to strace your application outside of proot to find what system calls are used. Alternatives may be tracing with bpftrace or trace-cmd/ftrace. (This is not elaborated on here because the author doesn't know how to do it.)
 
A table of system calls supported by proot-rs, which is not the same as proot, can be found at https://github.com/proot-me/proot-rs/wiki/Translation-of-system-calls .
 
As of PRoot 5.3.1 and 2022-Oct-24, PRoot doesn't support faccess2, which is invoked in glibc by bash through coreutils test. This makes the `[ -w /nix ]` expression fail incorrectly in the nix installer script. This can be worked around with this patch: https://github.com/proot-me/proot/pull/338 or <code>nix-shell -I nixpkgs=channel:nixos-unstable -p '(proot.overrideAttrs (o: { patches = [ (builtins.fetchurl "https://patch-diff.githubusercontent.com/raw/proot-me/proot/pull/338.patch" ) ]; }))'</code>
 
=== nix 2.0's native method ===
 
If nix is already installed on the system i.e. a self-compiled nix itself can also create
a nix store in an alternative user-writable locations.
The following command will create a nix store in <code>~/my-nix</code> and spawn a shell, where <code>~/my-nix</code> be mounted to <code>/nix</code>.
 
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
$ nix run --store ~/my-nix nixpkgs.nix nixpkgs.bashInteractive
</syntaxHighlight>
 
You can make all nix commands use the alternate store by specifying it in `~/.config/nix/nix.conf` as <code>store = /home/USERNAME/my-nix</code>.
 
== Installing on Debian Using APT ==
 
If you are using Debian (or a Debian-based distro) you can install Nix with the APT package manager. Some users may prefer using APT when modifying their system. The package named <code>nix-setup-systemd</code> will set up a multi-user Nix installation and run <code>nix-daemon</code> via <code>systemd</code>. To install:
 
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
$ sudo apt install nix-setup-systemd
</syntaxHighlight>
 
After installing, you should read <code>/usr/share/doc/nix-bin/README.Debian</code>. In particular, you will need to add your user to the <code>nix-users</code> group in order to use the daemon:
 
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
$ sudo /sbin/adduser $USER nix-users
</syntaxHighlight>
</syntaxHighlight>


This will start a new shell in which you can run the install script of nix:
Note that in Debian [https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/nix-setup-systemd Bookworm] <code>/etc/nix/nix.conf</code> will contain <code>sandbox = false</code>, but in Debian [https://packages.debian.org/trixie/nix-setup-systemd Trixie], sandbox mode is enabled by default. (See the Changelog for details.)


=== Configure user and/or desktop ===
To start installed nix applications from the command line, add the <code>~/.nix-profile/bin</code> to <code>PATH</code>.
To give the Desktop access the nix application data add the <code>~/.nix-profile/share</code> to <code>XDG_DATA_DIRS</code>.
For example include the following snippet in <code>~/.profile</code> of the user:
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
$ curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
### set PATH so it includes user's nix bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/.nix-profile/bin" ] ; then
    PATH="$HOME/.nix-profile/bin:$PATH"
fi
 
### set XDG_DATA_DIR so it includes user's nix share if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/.nix-profile/share" ] ; then
    XDG_DATA_DIRS="$HOME/.nix-profile/share:$XDG_DATA_DIRS"
fi
</syntaxHighlight>
</syntaxHighlight>


Note that you can only use nix and the installed programs within the shell started by <code>nix-user-chroot</code>.
Used source: https://imranmustafa.net/nix-on-debian/
 
=== Troubleshooting ===
 
During the <code>nix-build</code> command following the https://nix.dev/tutorials/nixos/nixos-configuration-on-vm#creating-a-qemu-based-virtual-machine-from-a-nixos-configuration
an error could occur like:
 
<code>...linux-6.12.39-modules-shrunk/lib' is not in the Nix store</code> whilst the directory is present in the <code>/nix/store/</code> directory.
 
A possible solution is to upgrade nix and nix-daemon applications because the distributed nix version is older, quite older with Debian [https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/nix-setup-systemd Bookworm], than the current nix version:


=== PRoot ===
1) Define the config at <code>~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix</code>:
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
with (import <nixpkgs> {});
{
  packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; {
    userPackages = buildEnv {
      extraOutputsToInstall = [ "doc" "info" "man" ];
      name = "user-packages";
      paths = [
        nix
      ];
    };
  };
}
</syntaxHighlight>
 
To upgrade nix:
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
nix-env --install --attr nixpkgs.userPackages --remove-all
</syntaxHighlight>


Precompiled PRoot binaries can be downloaded from [https://github.com/proot-me/proot-static-build/releases here]
Logout and login the user to see the effects.


The following commands will install nix the nix store to <code>~/.nix</code>
2) To use the upgraded <code>nix-daemon</code> application from the previous step in the <code>nix-daemon.service</code>, add a drop-in config file <code>override.conf</code> in <code>/etc/systemd/system/nix-daemon.service.d/</code>:


<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
# first make sure the executable bit is set on the binary
[Service]
$ chmod +x proot_5.1.1_x86_64_rc2--no-seccomp
ExecStart=
$ mkdir ~/.nix
ExecStart=@/home/myuser/.nix-profile/bin/nix-daemon nix-daemon --daemon
$ ./proot_5.1.1_x86_64_rc2--no-seccomp ~/.nix
</syntaxHighlight>
</syntaxHighlight>


This will start a new shell, where nix can be installed:
Restart the <code>nix-daemon.service</code>
Used source: https://blog.koch.ro/posts/2024-01-16-using-nix-package-manager-in-debian.html
 
 
== Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) ==
 
As of Windows 10, Microsoft supports running Linux and Linux programs on the Windows OS. Installation instructions can be found at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10. If you follow those instructions for using WSL2 (post-Windows 10 2004 build 19041), you can install Nix normally as described in [[Nix_Installation_Guide#Single-user_install|Single-user install]]. You can check what version of WSL you are using by running <code>wsl --list --verbose</code> from the Windows command line.
 
=== WSL1 (pre-Windows 10 2004 build 19041) ===
 
Running Nix is much simpler on WSL2, so we recommend that if at all possible. If WSL2 is not available, then Nix can be installed and run from WSL1 with a few workarounds.


If you perform no workarounds, you will see that <code>busybox</code> doesn't work in Nix due to WSL1 not handling 32-bit binaries. This can be remedied by following the solution laid out in [https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/24954#issuecomment-399614154 nixpkgs issue#24954]:
* Install and configure QEMU and binfmt-support
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
$ curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
$ sudo apt install qemu-user-static
$ sudo update-binfmts --install i386 /usr/bin/qemu-i386-static --magic '\x7fELF\x01\x01\x01\x03\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x03\x00\x03\x00\x01\x00\x00\x00' --mask '\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xfc\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xf8\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff\xff'
</syntaxHighlight>
</syntaxHighlight>


Note that you can only use nix and the installed programs within the shell started by PRoot.
* Start the <code>binfmt-support</code> service every WSL1 login:
<syntaxHighlight lang="console">
$ sudo service binfmt-support start
</syntaxHighlight>
 
* Continue installing Nix as described in [[Nix_Installation_Guide#Single-user_install|Single-user install]]
 
== ARMv7l ==
 
Because there is no officially produced ARMv7l installer, this page describes how to build your own: [[Nix_on_ARM]].
 
[[Category:nix]]
[[Category:Cookbook]]
Retrieved from "https://wiki.nixos.org/wiki/Nix_Installation_Guide"