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rustfmt.toml |
Harmonic
Harmonic is pre-release and experimental. Don't run it on machines you care about.
Harmonic is an opinionated, experimental Nix installer.
Try it on a machine/VM you don't care about!
curl -L https://install.determinate.systems/nix | sh -s -- install
Status
Harmonic is pre-release and experimental. It is not ready for you to use! Please don't use it on a machine you are not planning to obliterate!
Planned support:
- Multi-user x86_64 Linux with systemd init
- Multi-user aarch64 Linux with systemd init
- Multi-user x86_64 MacOS
- Note: User deletion is currently unimplemented, you need to use a user with a secure token and
dscl . -delete /Users/_nixbuild*
where*
is each user number.
- Note: User deletion is currently unimplemented, you need to use a user with a secure token and
- Multi-user aarch64 MacOS
- Note: User deletion is currently unimplemented, you need to use a user with a secure token and
dscl . -delete /Users/_nixbuild*
where*
is each user number.
- Note: User deletion is currently unimplemented, you need to use a user with a secure token and
- Valve Steam Deck
- Single-user x86_64 Linux
- Single-user aarch64 Linux
- Others...
Installation Differences
Differing from the current official Nix installer scripts:
- Nix is installed with the
nix-command
andflakes
features enabled in thenix.conf
- Harmonic stores an installation receipt (for uninstalling) at
/nix/receipt.json
as well as a copy of the install binary at/nix/harmonic
Motivations
The current Nix installer scripts do an excellent job, however they are difficult to maintain. Subtle differences in the shell implementations, and certain characteristics of bash scripts make it difficult to make meaningful changes to the installer.
Our team wishes to experiment with the idea of an installer in a more structured language and see if this is a worthwhile alternative. Along the way, we are also exploring a few other ideas, such as:
- offering users a chance to review an accurate, calculated install plan
- having 'planners' which can create appropriate install plans
- keeping an installation receipt for uninstallation
- offering users with a failing install the chance to do a best-effort revert
- doing whatever tasks we can in parallel
So far, our explorations have been quite fruitful, so we wanted to share and keep exploring.
Building
Since you'll be using Harmonic to install Nix on systems without Nix, the default build is a static binary.
Build it on a system with Nix:
nix build github:determinatesystems/harmonic
Then copy the result/bin/harmonic
to the machine you wish to run it on.
Installing
Install Nix with the default planner and options:
./harmonic install
harmonic
will elevate itself if it is not run asroot
usingsudo
. If you usedoas
orplease
you may need to elevateharmonic
yourself.
To observe verbose logging, either use harmonic -v
, this tool also respects the RUST_LOG
environment. (Eg RUST_LOG=harmonic=trace harmonic
).
Harmonic installs Nix by following a plan made by a planner. Review the available planners:
$ ./harmonic install --help
Execute an install (possibly using an existing plan)
To pass custom options, select a planner, for example `harmonic install linux-multi --help`
Usage: harmonic install [OPTIONS] [PLAN]
harmonic install <COMMAND>
Commands:
linux-multi
A standard Linux multi-user install
darwin-multi
A standard MacOS (Darwin) multi-user install
steam-deck
A specialized install suitable for the Valve Steam Deck console
help
Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
# ...
Planners have their own options and defaults, sharing most of them in common:
$ ./harmonic install linux-multi --help
A standard Linux multi-user install
Usage: harmonic install linux-multi [OPTIONS]
Options:
--channels <channel>
Channel(s) to add [env: HARMONIC_CHANNEL=] [default: nixpkgs=https://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-unstable]
--no-confirm
-v, --verbose...
Enable debug logs, -vv for trace
--explain
--logger <LOGGER>
Which logger to use [default: compact] [possible values: compact, full, pretty, json]
--modify-profile
Modify the user profile to automatically load nix [env: HARMONIC_NO_MODIFY_PROFILE=]
--daemon-user-count <DAEMON_USER_COUNT>
Number of build users to create [env: HARMONIC_DAEMON_USER_COUNT=] [default: 32]
--nix-build-group-name <NIX_BUILD_GROUP_NAME>
The Nix build group name [env: HARMONIC_NIX_BUILD_GROUP_NAME=] [default: nixbld]
--nix-build-group-id <NIX_BUILD_GROUP_ID>
The Nix build group GID [env: HARMONIC_NIX_BUILD_GROUP_ID=] [default: 3000]
--nix-build-user-prefix <NIX_BUILD_USER_PREFIX>
The Nix build user prefix (user numbers will be postfixed) [env: HARMONIC_NIX_BUILD_USER_PREFIX=] [default: nixbld]
--nix-build-user-id-base <NIX_BUILD_USER_ID_BASE>
The Nix build user base UID (ascending) [env: HARMONIC_NIX_BUILD_USER_ID_BASE=] [default: 3000]
--nix-package-url <NIX_PACKAGE_URL>
The Nix package URL [env: HARMONIC_NIX_PACKAGE_URL=] [default: https://releases.nixos.org/nix/nix-2.12.0/nix-2.12.0-x86_64-linux.tar.xz]
--extra-conf <EXTRA_CONF>
Extra configuration lines for `/etc/nix.conf` [env: HARMONIC_EXTRA_CONF=]
--force
If Harmonic should forcibly recreate files it finds existing [env: HARMONIC_FORCE=]
-h, --help
Print help information
Planners can be configured via environment variable, or by the command arguments.
$ HARMONIC_DAEMON_USER_COUNT=4 ./harmonic install linux-multi --nix-build-user-id-base 4000 --help
Uninstalling
You can remove a Harmonic-installed Nix by running
/nix/harmonic uninstall
As a library
We haven't published to crates.io yet. We plan to for 0.0.1.
Add harmonic
to your dependencies:
cargo add --git https://github.com/DeterminateSystems/harmonic
Building a CLI? Check out the
cli
feature flag forclap
integration.
Then it's possible to review the documentation:
cargo doc --open -p harmonic
Documentation is also available via nix
build:
nix build github:DeterminateSystems/harmonic#harmonic.doc
firefox result-doc/harmonic/index.html