Numerous test failures when using a non-standard store directory #1194

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opened 2026-04-26 04:04:03 +00:00 by rkjnsn · 4 comments

rkjnsn commented

2026-04-26 04:04:03 +00:00

Describe the bug

When building Lix in a non-standard store directory (e.g., $HOME/.local/share/nix) the checkPhase fails with numerous errors. These appear to be caused by the tests hard-conding STORE_DIR to "/nix/store/" rather than using the current store directory (or even the value passed to Meson).

Steps To Reproduce

NIX_STORE_DIR=/Users/rkjnsn/.local/share/nix NIX_STATE_DIR=/Users/rkjnsn/.local/state/nix NIX_LOG_DIR=/Users/rkjnsn/.local/state/nix/log NIX_CONF_DIR=/Users/rkjnsn/.config/nix nix-build --expr '
  let pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {}; in pkgs.lixPackageSets.git.lix.override {
    storeDir = "/Users/rkjnsn/.local/share/nix";
    stateDir = "/Users/rkjnsn/.local/state/nix";
    confDir = "/Users/rkjnsn/.config/nix";
  }'

Many tests fail and the build aborts.

Expected behavior

Lix successfully builds and tests pass.

`nix --version` output

nix (Lix, like Nix) 2.96.0-dev
System type: aarch64-darwin
Additional system types: x86_64-darwin
Features: gc, signed-caches
System configuration file: /Users/rkjnsn/.config/nix/nix/nix.conf
User configuration files: /Users/rkjnsn/.config/nix/nix.conf:/etc/xdg/nix/nix.conf
Store directory: /Users/rkjnsn/.local/share/nix
State directory: /Users/rkjnsn/.local/state/nix/nix
Data directory: /Users/rkjnsn/.local/share/nix/lqs918y010llv39gbb9kkyxisqfsrmkh-lix-2.96.0-pre-20260317_96db7c79cf2a/share

## Describe the bug When building Lix in a non-standard store directory (e.g., `$HOME/.local/share/nix`) the checkPhase fails with numerous errors. These appear to be caused by the tests hard-conding STORE_DIR to "/nix/store/" rather than using the current store directory (or even the value passed to Meson). ## Steps To Reproduce ``` NIX_STORE_DIR=/Users/rkjnsn/.local/share/nix NIX_STATE_DIR=/Users/rkjnsn/.local/state/nix NIX_LOG_DIR=/Users/rkjnsn/.local/state/nix/log NIX_CONF_DIR=/Users/rkjnsn/.config/nix nix-build --expr ' let pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {}; in pkgs.lixPackageSets.git.lix.override { storeDir = "/Users/rkjnsn/.local/share/nix"; stateDir = "/Users/rkjnsn/.local/state/nix"; confDir = "/Users/rkjnsn/.config/nix"; }' ``` Many tests fail and the build aborts. ## Expected behavior Lix successfully builds and tests pass. ## `nix --version` output nix (Lix, like Nix) 2.96.0-dev System type: aarch64-darwin Additional system types: x86_64-darwin Features: gc, signed-caches System configuration file: /Users/rkjnsn/.config/nix/nix/nix.conf User configuration files: /Users/rkjnsn/.config/nix/nix.conf:/etc/xdg/nix/nix.conf Store directory: /Users/rkjnsn/.local/share/nix State directory: /Users/rkjnsn/.local/state/nix/nix Data directory: /Users/rkjnsn/.local/share/nix/lqs918y010llv39gbb9kkyxisqfsrmkh-lix-2.96.0-pre-20260317_96db7c79cf2a/share

rkjnsn added the

bug

label

2026-04-26 04:04:03 +00:00

raito commented

2026-04-26 13:01:51 +00:00

Owner

Could you share more information about why you would like to use a different physical store path? This has some drastic consequences and is super unsupported in practice (we do accept patches to improve the situation obviously).

rkjnsn commented

2026-04-27 06:37:08 +00:00

Author

Getting admin access on this machine is somewhat painful, so I wanted to give it a go in my home directory. So far, having to disable the checkPhase on Lix is the only related issue I've encountered.

raito commented

2026-04-27 09:37:59 +00:00

Owner

@rkjnsn Interesting! I'm curious: do you have unprivileged user namespaces, if so, have you considered running the vanilla Nix but use a bind mounts inside of an unprivileged user namespace for the /nix/store that lives in your HOME directory? There's a couple of tools that can do that for you more or less automatically.

@rkjnsn Interesting! I'm curious: do you have unprivileged user namespaces, if so, have you considered running the vanilla Nix but use a bind mounts inside of an unprivileged user namespace for the `/nix/store` that lives in your HOME directory? There's a couple of tools that can do that for you more or less automatically.

rkjnsn commented

2026-04-27 17:32:18 +00:00

Author

That's a Linux feature, right? This is a macOS system, and I didn't see anything similar when I was researching. I also wasn't sure how it would interact with, e.g., using Home Manager.