FAQ
Frequently asked questions and common newcomer trouble should be put here so that we can point to this page instead of answering the same question over and over again.
http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/nixos can also be used for questions.
Why is there a new wiki? What is with nixos.wiki?
The old wiki at nixos.wiki has several problems:
- Many components (mediawiki, php, icu) are severely outdated.
- MediaWiki 1.29 (EOL 2018), now 1.35 (EOL 2023-12)
- PHP 7.3.33 (EOL 2021-12)
- ICU 64.2
- Cloudflare DDOS protection makes wiki edits fail sometimes.
- There is no WYSIWYG editor.
- The wiki infrastructure, which was supposed to be made public after launch, never ended-up being made public.
We tried to address these issues multiple times over multiple years across multiple channels (email, matrix). We never got a direct answer. The last point of contact was made through zimbatm representing the NixOS foundation, asking the maintainer about possible cooperation on a new wiki. The answer was no. With the old wiki deteriorating and the maintainer unresponsive, forking the content into a new wiki remained the only way forward.
Also see:
- https://wiki.nixos.org/wiki/User:Winny/WikiRisks
- https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/495011-redirect-to-wiki-nixos-org (trivial userscript to redirect nixos.wiki links here)
Why is Nix written in C++ rather than a functional language like Haskell?
Mainly because Nix is intended to be lightweight, easy to learn, and portable (zero dependencies).
How to keep build-time dependencies around / be able to rebuild while being offline?
# /etc/nixos/configuration.nix
{ config, pkgs, lib, ... }:
{
nix.settings = {
keep-outputs = true;
keep-derivations = true;
# See https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/command-ref/conf-file.html
# for a complete list of Nix configuration options.
};
}
Check 'man configuration.nix' for these options. Rebuild for these options to take effect:
nixos-rebuild switch
List all store paths that form the system closure and realise them:
nix-store -qR $(nix-instantiate '<nixpkgs/nixos>' -A system) | xargs nix-store -r
warning: you did not specify `--add-root'; the result might be removed by the garbage collector
<build output and list of successfully realised paths>
Repeat for your user and further profiles:
nix-store -qR ~/.nix-profile | xargs nix-store -r
The warning can be ignored for profiles that are listed/linked in /nix/var/nix/profiles/ or one of its subdirectories.
Consult man pages of nix-store and nix-instantiate for further information.
Why <hash>-<name> instead of <name>-<hash>?
For the rare cases where we have to dig into the /nix/store it is more practical to keep in mind the first few letters at the beginning than finding a package by name. Ie, you can uniquely identify almost any storepath with just the first 4-5 characters of the hash. (Rather than having to type out the full package name, then 4-5 characters of the hash.)
Also, since the initial part is all of the same length, visually parsing a list of packages is easier.
If you still wonder why, run ls -1 /nix/store | sort -R -t - -k 2 | less
in your shell. (? unclear)
This is what might happen if you don't garbage collect frequently, or if you are testing compilation variants:
q0yi2nr8i60gm2zap46ryysydd2nhzhp-automake-1.11.1/
vbi4vwwidvd6kklq2kc0kx3nniwa3acl-automake-1.11.1/
wjgzir57hcbzrq3mcgxiwkyiqss3r4aq-automake-1.11.1/
1ch5549xnck37gg2w5fh1jgk6lkpq5mc-nixos-build-vms/
4cmjlxknzlvcdmfwj0ih0ggqsj5q73hb-nixos-build-vms/
7fv4kwi5wwwzd11ili3qwg28xrj8rxw2-nixos-build-vms/
8jij13smq9kdlqv96hm7y8xmbh2c54iy-nixos-build-vms/
j714mv53xi2j4ab4g2i08knqr137fd6l-nixos-build-vms/
xvs7y09jf7j48p6l0p87iypgpq470jqw-nixos-build-vms/
I've updated my channel and something is broken, how can I rollback to an earlier channel?
View the available generations of your channel:
nix-env --list-generations -p /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels
18 2014-04-17 09:16:28
19 2014-06-13 10:31:24
20 2014-08-12 19:09:20 (current)
To rollback to the previous generation:
nix-env --rollback -p /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels
switching from generation 20 to 19
To switch to a particular generation:
nix-env --switch-generation 18 -p /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels
switching from generation 20 to 18
I'm working on a new package, how can I build it without adding it to nixpkgs?
nix-build -E 'with import <nixpkgs> { }; callPackage ./mypackage.nix { }'
You can replace callPackage with callPackage_i686 to build the 32-bit version of your package on a 64-bit system if you want to test that.
How can I compile a package with debugging symbols included?
To build a package with -Og and -g, and without stripping debug symbols use:
nix-build -E 'with import <nixpkgs> { }; enableDebugging fooPackage'
See also Debug Symbols
How can I force a rebuild from source even without modifying the nix expression?
As root you can run nix-build with the --check flag:
sudo nix-build --check -A ncdu
How can I manage software with nix-env like with configuration.nix?
There are many ways, one is the following:
Create a meta package called userPackages your ~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix file with the packages you would like to have in your environment:
with (import <nixpkgs> {}); { packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; { userPackages = buildEnv { inherit ((import <nixpkgs/nixos> {}).config.system.path) pathsToLink ignoreCollisions postBuild; extraOutputsToInstall = [ "man" ]; name = "user-packages"; paths = [ vim git wget ]; }; }; }
Install all specified packages using this command:
nix-env -iA userPackages -f '<nixpkgs>'
Now you can add and remove packages from the paths list and rerun nix-env to update your user local packages.
Another way is using Home Manager.
I've downloaded a binary, but I can't run it, what can I do?
Binaries normally do not work out of the box when you download them because they normally just assume that libraries can be found in hardcoded paths such as /lib
. However this assumption is incorrect on NixOS systems due to the inner workings of nix
- there is no default path, everything gets set to the corresponding version on compile time.
If you are new to packaging proprietary software you should check out the Packaging Binaries Tutorial.
If you are in a hurry and just want to get shit running, continue reading:
You can use nix-ld to run compiled binaries. For example, if your binary needs zlib and openssl:
programs.nix-ld = {
enable = true;
libraries = [ pkgs.zlib pkgs.openssl ];
};
Log out and back in to apply the environment variables it sets, and you can then directly run the binary.
If you don't want to configure the list of libraries manually, a quick and dirty way to run nearly any precompiled binary is the following:
programs.nix-ld = {
enable = true;
libraries = pkgs.steam-run.fhsenv.args.multiPkgs pkgs;
};
This uses the libraries that are used by Steam to simulate a traditional Linux FHS environment to run games in. It's a big list that usually contains all the libraries your binary needs to run.
Another possibility is to use patchelf to set the library path and dynamic linker appropriately, since compiled binaries have hard-coded interpreter and require certain dynamic libraries.
# mybinaryprogram.nix
with import <nixpkgs> {};
stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
name = "somename";
buildInputs = [ makeWrapper ];
buildPhase = "true";
libPath = lib.makeLibraryPath with xlibs;[ libXrandr libXinerama libXcursor ];
unpackPhase = "true";
installPhase = ''
mkdir -p $out/bin
cp ${./mybinaryprogram} $out/bin/mybinaryprogram
'';
postFixup = ''
patchelf \
--set-interpreter "$(cat $NIX_CC/nix-support/dynamic-linker)" \
--set-rpath "${libPath}" \
$out/bin/mybinaryprogram
'';
}
This can be built with:
nix-build mybinaryprogram.nix
And run with:
./result/bin/mybinaryprogram
Another possibility is using a FHS-compatible Sandbox with buildFHSUserEnv
# fhsUser.nix
{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
(pkgs.buildFHSUserEnv {
name = "example-env";
targetPkgs = pkgs: with pkgs; [
coreutils
];
multiPkgs = pkgs: with pkgs; [
zlib
xorg.libXxf86vm
curl
openal
openssl_1_0_2
xorg.libXext
xorg.libX11
xorg.libXrandr
mesa_glu
];
runScript = "bash";
}).env
the sandbox can be entered with
nix-shell fhsUser.nix
If your target application can't find shared libraries inside buildFHSUserEnv, you may run nix-de-generate for target application inside FHS, which will generate newenv.nix file, an nix-expression of buildFHSUserEnv with resolved dependencies for shared libraries.
What are channels and how do they get updated?
Nixpkgs is the git repository containing all packages and NixOS modules/expressions. Installing packages directly from Nixpkgs master branch is possible but a bit risky as git commits are merged into master before being heavily tested. That's where channels are useful.
A "channel" is a name for the latest "verified" git commits in Nixpkgs. Each channel has a different definition of what "verified" means. Each time a new git commit is verified, the channel declaring this verification gets updated. Contrary to an user of the git master branch, a channel user will benefit both from verified commits and binary packages from the binary cache.
Channels are reified as git branches in the nixpkgs repository and as disk images in the channels webpage. There are several channels, each with its own use case and verification phase:
- nixos-unstable
- description Use this when you want the latest package and module versions while still benefiting from the binary cache. You can use this channel on non-NixOS systems. This channel corresponds to NixOS’s main development branch, and may thus see radical changes between channel updates. This channel is not recommended for production systems.
- definition this channel is updated depending on release.nix and release-lib.nix
- nixos-unstable-small
- description This channel is identical to
nixos-unstable
described above, except that this channel contains fewer binary packages. This means the channel gets updated faster thannixos-unstable
(for instance, when a critical security patch is committed to NixOS’s source tree). However, the binary cache may contain less binary packages and thus using this channel may require building more packages from source thannixos-unstable
. This channel is mostly intended for server environments and as such contains few GUI applications. - definition this channel is updated depending on release-small.nix and release-lib.nix
- description This channel is identical to
- nixos-YY.MM (where YY is a 2-digit year and MM is a 2-digit month, such as nixos-17.03)
- description These channels are called stable and only get conservative bug fixes and package upgrades. For instance, a channel update may cause the Linux kernel on your system to be upgraded from 3.4.66 to 3.4.67 (a minor bug fix), but not from 3.4.x to 3.11.x (a major change that has the potential to break things). Stable channels are generally maintained until the next stable branch is created.
- definition this channel is updated depending on release.nix and release-lib.nix
- nixos-YY.MM-small (where YY is a 2-digit year and MM is a 2-digit month, such as nixos-15.09-small)
- description The difference between
nixos-YY.MM-small
andnixos-YY.MM
is the same as the one betweennixos-unstable-small
andnixos-unstable
(see above)
- description The difference between
Channel update works as follows:
- Each channel has a particular job at hydra.nixos.org which must succeed:
- For NixOS: the trunk-combined tested job, which contains some automated NixOS tests.
- For nixos-small: the unstable-small tested job.
- For nixpkgs: the trunk unstable job, which contains some critical release packages.
- Once the job succeeds at a particular nixpkgs commit, cache.nixos.org will download binaries from hydra.nixos.org.
- Once the above download completes, the channel updates.
You can checkout the nixpkgs git and reset it to a particular commit of a channel. This will not affect your access to the binary cache.
How do I know where's nixpkgs channel located and at which commit?
First echo $NIX_PATH
to see where nix looks for the expressions. Note that nix-env uses ~/.nix-defexpr regardless of $NIX_PATH.
If you want to know where <nixpkgs> is located:
nix-instantiate --find-file nixpkgs
To know the commit, open the .version-suffix file in the nixpkgs location. The hash after the dot is the git commit.
Nixpkgs branches
Branches on the nixpkgs repo have a relationship with channels, but that relationship is not 1:1.
Some branches are reified as channels (e.g. the nixos-XX.YY
branches, or nix(os|pkgs)-unstable
), whereas others are the starting point for those branches (e.g. the master
or release-XX.YY
branches). For example:
- When a change in master needs to be backported to the current NixOS release, it is cherry-picked into the current
release-XX.YY
branch - Hydra picks up this change, runs tests, and if those tests pass, updates the corresponding
nixos-XX.YY
branch, which is then reified as a channel.
So in short, the relase-XX.YY
branches have not been run through Hydra yet, whereas the nixos-XX.YY
ones have.
There's an updated version for $software on nixpkgs but not in channels, how can I use it?
You can jump the queue and use nix-shell
with a NIX_PATH
pointing to a tarball of the channel to get a shell for that software. Some building may occur. This will not work for system services.
NIX_PATH=nixpkgs=https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/release-17.09.tar.gz nix-shell -p $software
How do I install a specific version of a package for build reproducibility etc.?
See FAQ/Pinning Nixpkgs and How to fetch Nixpkgs with an empty NIX PATH. Find the version of nixpkgs with the package version you want and pin nixpkgs to that. However, be aware that the pinning of a package of another nixpkgs version results in a much larger package size as not only the package itself but all dependencies (down to libc) have older versions.
if you just want the old version of the single package but with new dependencies it is often easier to copy the package description into your scope and add it to your configuration.nix
via: mypackage-old = pkgs.callPackage ./mypackage-old.nix {};
.You can try to build the package as described in the FAQ: building a single derivation.
An error occurs while fetching sources from an url, how do I fix it?
First try to update the local nixpkgs expressions with nix-channel --update
(these describe where to download sources from and how to build them). Try your build again and the url might have already been correctly updated for the package in question. You can also subscribe the unstable channel (which includes the most up-to-date expressions) with nix-channel --add http://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-unstable
, update and try the build again.
If that fails you can update the url in the nix expression yourself. Navigate to your channel's expressions and find the package in one of the subdirectories. Edit the respective default.nix file by altering the url and sha256. You can use nix-prefetch-url url
to get the SHA-256 hash of source distributions.
If the shell complains that you do not have write privileges for the file system, you will have to enable them.
start a new shell with a private mount namespace (Linux-only)
sudo unshare -m bash
remount the filesystem with write privileges (as root)
mount -o remount,rw /nix/store
update the file
nano <PATH_TO_PACKAGE>/default.nix
exit to shell where /nix/store is still mounted read-only
exit
Be sure to report the incorrect url or fix it yourself.
How do I know the sha256 to use with fetchgit, fetchsvn, fetchbzr or fetchcvs?
Install nix-prefetch-scripts
and use the corresponding nix prefetch helper.
For instance to get the checksum of a git repository use:
nix-prefetch-git https://git.zx2c4.com/password-store
Or, use lib.fakeHash
as the fetcher's hash argument, and attempt to build; Nix will tell you the actual and expected hash's mismatch, and you may copy the actual hash.
Should I use http://hydra.nixos.org/ as a binary cache?
No. As of 2017, all build artifacts are directly pushed to http://cache.nixos.org/ and are available there, therefore setting http://hydra.nixos.org/ as a binary cache no longer serves any function.
I'm trying to install NixOS but my WiFi isn't working and I don't have an ethernet port
Most phones will allow you to share your WiFi connection over USB. On Android you can enable this setting via Settings > Wireless & Networks / More ... > Tethering & portable hotspot > USB tethering. This should be enough to allow you to install NixOS, and then fix your WiFi. iPhones only let you tether using your data connection rather than WiFi.
It is also possible to build a custom NixOS installation ISO containing all the dependencies needed for an offline installation, but the default installation ISOs require internet connectivity.
For connecting to your WiFi, see NixOS_Installation_Guide#Wireless
How can I disable the binary cache and build everything locally?
Set the binary caches to an empty list: nix.binaryCaches = [];
in configuration.nix
or pass ad-hoc --option binary-caches ''
as parameter to nix-build or its wrappers.
This is also useful to make simple configuration changes in NixOS (ex.: network related), when no network connectivity is available:
nixos-rebuild switch --option binary-caches ''
How do I enable sandboxed builds on non-NixOS?
Two options have to be added to make sandboxed builds work on Nix, build-use-sandbox and build-sandbox-paths:
# /etc/nix/nix.conf
build-use-sandbox = true
build-sandbox-paths = $(nix-store -qR $(nix-build '<nixpkgs>' -A bash) | xargs echo /bin/sh=$(nix-build '<nixpkgs>' -A bash)/bin/bash)
On NixOS set the following in configuration.nix:
nix.settings.sandbox = true;
See Nix package manager#Sandbox_builds for more details.
How can I install a package from unstable while remaining on the stable channel?
If you simply want to run a nix-shell with a package from unstable, you can run a command like the following:
nix-shell -I nixpkgs=channel:nixpkgs-unstable -p somepackage
It is possible to have multiple nix-channels simultaneously. To add the unstable channel with the specifier unstable,
sudo nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-unstable nixos-unstable
After updating the channel
sudo nix-channel --update nixos-unstable
queries via nix-env
will show packages from both stable and unstable. Use this to install unstable packages into your user environment. The following snippet shows how this can be done in configuration.nix.
{ config, pkgs, ... }:
let
unstable = import <nixos-unstable> {};
in {
environment.systemPackages = [ unstable.PACKAGE_NAME ];
}
This only changes what version of PACKAGE_NAME
is available on $PATH
. If the package you want to take from unstable is installed through a NixOS module, you must use overlays:
{ config, pkgs, ... }:
let
unstable = import <nixos-unstable> {};
in {
nixpkgs.overlays = [
(self: super: {
PACKAGE_NAME = unstable.PACKAGE_NAME;
})
];
}
Note that this will rebuild all packages depending on the overlaid package, which may be a lot. Some modules offer a services.foo.package
to change the actual derivation used by the module without and overlay, and without recompiling dependencies (example).
If you want to install unfree packages from unstable you need to also set allowUnfree by replacing the import statment above with:
import <nixos-unstable> { config = { allowUnfree = true; }; }
I'm unable to connect my USB HDD | External HDD is failing to mount automatically
Note: If you're using a kernel with at least version 5.6, you don't need to explicitly add this.
exfat is not supported in NixOS by default - since there are legality issues still with exFAT filesystem.
su nano /etc/nixos/configuration.nix
Add this line to your configuration file.
boot.extraModulePackages = [ config.boot.kernelPackages.exfat-nofuse ];
After saving the file rebuild NixOS:
nixos-rebuild switch
Restart NixOS.
What is the origin of the name "Nix"
The name Nix
comes from the Dutch word niks which means nothing. It reflects the fact that Nix derivations do not have access to anything that has not been explicitly declared as an input.[1]
What does it mean to say that NixOS is "immutable"
Immutability is a property of data, in general, which means that the data cannot be modified after it is created. In the context of an operating system, it really means that certain parts of the system have this property. In the case of Nix and NixOS, that includes the Nix store, where files can be created but not modified after the time they are created. It does not apply to every part of the operating system, in that users can still modify their own files in their home directory, for example.
I installed a library but my compiler is not finding it. Why?
With nix, only applications should be installed into profiles. Libraries are used using nix-shell. If you want to compile a piece of software that requires zlib (or openssl, sqlite etc.) and uses pkg-config to discover it, run
$ nix-shell -p gcc pkg-config zlib
to get into a shell with the appropriate environment variables set. In there, a configure script (with C Autotools, C++ CMake, Rust Cargo etc.) will work as expected.
This applies to other language environments too. In some cases the expressions to use are a bit different, e.g. because the interpreter needs to be wrapped to have some additional environment variables passed to it. The manual has a section on the subject.
Note that software built in such a shell may stop working after a garbage collection. This is because Nix only tracks dependencies of paths within the store. A clean build in a fresh shell can fix this one-off, but the long-term solution is to package the software in question rather than using a shell build regularly.
If you have a lot of dependencies, you may want to write a nix expression that includes your dependencies so that you can simply use nix-shell
rather than writing out each dependency every time or keeping your development environment in your shell history. A minimal example looks like this:
# default.nix
with import <nixpkgs> {};
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "dev-environment"; # Probably put a more meaningful name here
buildInputs = [ pkg-config zlib ];
}
Why does it work like that?
This helps ensure purity of builds: on other distributions, the result of building a piece of software may depend on which other software you have installed. Nix attempts to avoid this to the greatest degree possible, which allows builds of a piece of software to be identical (in the ideal case) no matter where they're built, by requiring all dependencies to be declared.
Why not use nix-env -i hello?
nix-env -i hello
is slower and tends to be less precise than nix-env -f '<nixpkgs>' -iA hello
. This is because it will evaluate all of nixpkgs searching for packages with the name hello
, and install the one determined to be the latest (which may not even be the one that you want). Meanwhile, with -A
, nix-env will evaluate only the given attribute in nixpkgs. This will be significantly faster, consume significantly less memory, and more likely get you what you want.
nix-env -u
has the same problem, searching for all the packages in the user environment by name and upgrading them. This may lead to unwanted major-version upgrades like JDK 8 → JDK 9. If you want to have a declarative user environment, you may wish to use Home Manager. It is also possible to home-bake a pure nix solution like LnL's. With this setup, you can update your packages by simply running nix-rebuild
.
When do I update stateVersion
Keep stateVersion
to the version you originally installed.[2]
The system.stateVersion
option is described as such:
Every once in a while, a new NixOS release may change configuration defaults in a way incompatible with stateful data. For instance, if the default version of PostgreSQL changes, the new version will probably be unable to read your existing databases. To prevent such breakage, you can set the value of this option to the NixOS release with which you want to be compatible. The effect is that NixOS will option defaults corresponding to the specified release (such as using an older version of PostgreSQL).
Frequent answers:
stateVersion
has nothing to do with the current version of the system[3]- Do NOT change the
stateVersion
in the configuration; [it] tells nixos what version your state is; changing it will break the things [it is] meant to fix.[4]
When can I update stateVersion
?
When:
- You have read all release notes starting from your
stateVersion
. - You have verified all instances of
stateVersion
in the code in <nixpkgs/nixos>. - You have made all manual interventions as required by the changes previously inventoried.
I cannot find $package when running nix-env -qaP
even with channels configured
Not all packages are listed. Packages may not be listed because:
- the package is unfree, like e.g. unrar and teamspeak_client; see Unfree software for more information
- the package is part of an attribute set and
nix-env
doesn't recurse into this set (see pkgs.recurseIntoAttrs), usenix-env -qaP -A haskellPackages
for listing these entries
Unfree software, sometimes called nonfree software, is software that cannot be freely modified or distributed. Nixpkgs provides packages for unfree software, but additional configuration is required before they can be used.
Using unfree packages
Per-package (preferred)
This method works for both NixOS system level configuration and Home Manager:
![](/w/images/e/ef/Breeze-text-x-plain.png)
/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
{
nixpkgs.config.allowUnfreePredicate = pkg: builtins.elem (lib.getName pkg) [
"vscode"
];
}
For all packages
This method works for both NixOS system level configuration and Home Manager:
![](/w/images/e/ef/Breeze-text-x-plain.png)
/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
{
nixpkgs.config.allowUnfree = true;
}
Command line
You won't be able to install or search for an unfree package as a user unless you explicitly enable it:
![](/w/images/e/ef/Breeze-text-x-plain.png)
~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix
{
allowUnfree = true;
}
Temporarily allowing
For temporary allowing unfree packages, you can use an environment variable:
$ NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNFREE=1 nix-shell -p vscode
Note for the new nix3-style commands, you need to pass --impure
as well:
$ NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNFREE=1 nix run nixpkgs#vscode --impure
Hydra
Hydra does not build unfree software, and unfree software is unavailable in cache.nixos.org
.
See also
References
- ↑ Eelco Dolstra et al. “Nix: A Safe and Policy-Free System for Software Deployment.” LiSA (2004), https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5fd8/8f89bd8738816e62808a1b7fb12d3ab14a2f.pdf
- ↑ https://logs.nix.samueldr.com/nixos/2017-12-05#745406
- ↑ https://logs.nix.samueldr.com/nixos/2018-04-18#1524080358-1524080429;
- ↑ https://logs.nix.samueldr.com/nixos/2017-10-18#1508341107-1508341130;