![]() * Use remote action * Use nix installer everywhere * Update README.md * Fixup tag used * Fixups |
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LICENSE | ||
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upload_s3.sh |
Nix Installer
nix-installer
is an opinionated, experimental Nix installer.
curl -L https://install.determinate.systems/nix | sh -s -- install
Status
nix-installer
is pre-release and experimental. It is not ready for high reliability use! Please don't use it on a business critical machine!
Current and planned support:
- Multi-user Linux (aarch64 and x86_64) with systemd init, no SELinux
- Multi-user MacOS (aarch64 and x86_64)
- 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
- Multi-user Linux (aarch64 and x86_64) with systemd init & SELinux
- Single-user Linux (aarch64 and x86_64)
- Others...
Installation Differences
Differing from the current official Nix installer scripts:
- Nix is installed with the
nix-command
andflakes
features enabled in thenix.conf
nix-installer
stores an installation receipt (for uninstalling) at/nix/receipt.json
as well as a copy of the install binary at/nix/nix-installer
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.
Usage
Install Nix with the default planner and options:
curl -L https://install.determinate.systems/nix | sh -s -- install
Or, to download a platform specific Installer binary yourself:
$ curl -sL -o nix-installer https://install.determinate.systems/nix/nix-installer-x86_64-linux
$ chmod +x nix-installer
nix-installer
will elevate itself if needed usingsudo
. If you usedoas
orplease
you may need to elevatenix-installer
yourself.
nix-installer
installs Nix by following a plan made by a planner. Review the available planners:
$ ./nix-installer install --help
Execute an install (possibly using an existing plan)
To pass custom options, select a planner, for example `nix-installer install linux-multi --help`
Usage: nix-installer install [OPTIONS] [PLAN]
nix-installer 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:
$ ./nix-installer install linux-multi --help
A standard Linux multi-user install
Usage: nix-installer install linux-multi [OPTIONS]
Options:
# ...
--nix-build-user-count <NIX_BUILD_USER_COUNT>
Number of build users to create
[env: NIX_INSTALLER_NIX_BUILD_USER_COUNT=]
[default: 32]
--nix-build-user-id-base <NIX_BUILD_USER_ID_BASE>
The Nix build user base UID (ascending)
[env: NIX_INSTALLER_NIX_BUILD_USER_ID_BASE=]
[default: 3000]
# ...
Planners can be configured via environment variable or command arguments:
$ curl -L https://install.determinate.systems/nix | NIX_BUILD_USER_COUNT=4 sh -s -- install linux-multi --nix-build-user-id-base 4000
# Or...
$ NIX_BUILD_USER_COUNT=4 ./nix-installer install linux-multi --nix-build-user-id-base 4000
Uninstalling
You can remove a nix-installer
-installed Nix by running
/nix/nix-installer uninstall
As a Github Action
You can use the nix-installer-action
Github Action like so:
on:
pull_request:
push:
branches: [main]
jobs:
lints:
name: Build
runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v3
- name: Install Nix
uses: DeterminateSystems/nix-installer-action
with:
# Allow the installed Nix to make authenticated Github requests.
# If you skip this, you will likely get rate limited.
github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
- name: Run `nix build`
run: nix build .
Building
Since you'll be using nix-installer
to install Nix on systems without Nix, the default build is a static binary.
Build a portable binary on a system with Nix:
nix build -L github:determinatesystems/nix-installer#nix-installer-static
Then copy the result/bin/nix-installer
to the machine you wish to run it on.
You can also add nix-installer
to your system without having Nix:
RUSTFLAGS="--cfg tokio_unstable" cargo install nix-installer
nix-installer --help
To make this build portable, pass --target x86_64-unknown-linux-musl
.
We currently require
--cfg tokio_unstable
as we utilize Tokio's process groups, which wrap stablestd
APIs, but are unstable due to it requiring an MSRV bump.
As a library
Add nix-installer
to your dependencies:
cargo add nix-installer
Building a CLI? Check out the
cli
feature flag forclap
integration.
You'll also need to edit your .cargo/config.toml
to use tokio_unstable
:
# .cargo/config.toml
[build]
rustflags=["--cfg", "tokio_unstable"]
Then it's possible to review the documentation:
cargo doc --open -p nix-installer
Documentation is also available via nix
build:
nix build github:DeterminateSystems/nix-installer#nix-installer.doc
firefox result-doc/nix-installer/index.html