lix/doc/manual/src/command-ref/conf-file-prefix.md
Eelco Dolstra c8fa39324a
Generate the nix.conf docs from the source code
This means we don't have two (divergent) sets of option descriptions
anymore.
2020-08-19 18:28:04 +02:00

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Title: nix.conf

Name

nix.conf - Nix configuration file

Description

By default Nix reads settings from the following places:

  • The system-wide configuration file sysconfdir/nix/nix.conf (i.e. /etc/nix/nix.conf on most systems), or $NIX_CONF_DIR/nix.conf if NIX_CONF_DIR is set. Values loaded in this file are not forwarded to the Nix daemon. The client assumes that the daemon has already loaded them.

  • If NIX_USER_CONF_FILES is set, then each path separated by : will be loaded in reverse order.

    Otherwise it will look for nix/nix.conf files in XDG_CONFIG_DIRS and XDG_CONFIG_HOME. If these are unset, it will look in $HOME/.config/nix.conf.

The configuration files consist of name = value pairs, one per line. Other files can be included with a line like include path, where path is interpreted relative to the current conf file and a missing file is an error unless !include is used instead. Comments start with a # character. Here is an example configuration file:

keep-outputs = true       # Nice for developers
keep-derivations = true   # Idem

You can override settings on the command line using the --option flag, e.g. --option keep-outputs false.

The following settings are currently available: