When running universal binaries like /bin/bash, Darwin XNU will choose
which architecture of the binary to use based on "binary preferences".
This change sets that to the current platform for aarch64 and x86_64
builds. In addition it now uses posix_spawn instead of the usual
execve. Note, that this does not prevent the other architecture from
being run, just advises which to use.
Unfortunately, posix_spawnattr_setbinpref_np does not appear to be
inherited by child processes in x86_64 Rosetta 2 translations, meaning
that this will not always work as expected.
For example:
{
arm = derivation {
name = "test";
system = "aarch64-darwin";
builder = "/bin/bash";
args = [ "-e" (builtins.toFile "test" ''
set -x
/usr/sbin/sysctl sysctl.proc_translated
/usr/sbin/sysctl sysctl.proc_native
[ "$(/usr/bin/arch)" = arm64 ]
/usr/bin/touch $out
'') ];
};
rosetta = derivation {
name = "test";
system = "x86_64-darwin";
builder = "/bin/bash";
args = [ "-e" (builtins.toFile "test" ''
set -x
/usr/sbin/sysctl sysctl.proc_translated
/usr/sbin/sysctl sysctl.proc_native
[ "$(/usr/bin/arch)" = i386 ]
echo It works!
/usr/bin/touch $out
'') ];
};
}
`arm' fails on x86_64-compiled Nix, but `arm' and `rosetta' succeed on
aarch64-compiled Nix. I suspect there is a way to fix this since:
$ /usr/bin/arch -arch x86_64 /bin/bash \
-c '/usr/bin/arch -arch arm64e /bin/bash -c /usr/bin/arch'
arm64
seems to work correctly. We may need to wait for Apple to update
system_cmds in opensource.apple.com to find out how though.
macOS systems with ARM64 can utilize a translation layer at
/Library/Apple/usr/libexec/oah to run x86_64 binaries. This change
makes Nix recognize that and it to "extra-platforms". Note that there
are two cases here since Nix could be built for either x86_64 or
aarch64. In either case, we can switch to the other architecture.
Unfortunately there is not a good way to prevent aarch64 binaries from
being run in x86_64 contexts or vice versa - programs can always
execute programs for the other architecture.
If the build closure contains some CA derivations, then we can't know
ahead-of-time that we won't build anything as early-cutoff might come-in
at a laster stage
gnu-config standardized on aarch64 for machine name so host_cpu part
of $system will always be aarch64. That means system will be
aarch64-darwin too.
uname however could report either “aarch64” (if gnu coreutils) or
“arm64” (if apple’s uname). We should support both for compatiblity
here.
As we are working towards Nix 3.0 we want to make sure that we make a
huge step forward in Nix's user experience. And once 3.0 is out of the
door we need to make sure that all future commands and features keep up
the standard of user experience.
This PR adds a CLI guideline document to the Nix documentation. Consider
this document a good starting point and a checklist when somebody will
be (re)implementing commands.
Clearly this guideline does nothing to improve user experience on its
own and can only be useful as long as it is going to be read and
cared for. But it is a first step into that direction.
Stéphan Kochen