diff --git a/doc/manual/command-ref/conf-file.xml b/doc/manual/command-ref/conf-file.xml
index 24fbf28cf..09aad2e05 100644
--- a/doc/manual/command-ref/conf-file.xml
+++ b/doc/manual/command-ref/conf-file.xml
@@ -864,6 +864,31 @@ requiredSystemFeatures = [ "kvm" ];
 
   </varlistentry>
 
+  <varlistentry xml:id="conf-tarball-ttl"><term><literal>tarball-ttl</literal></term>
+
+    <listitem>
+      <para>Default: <literal>3600</literal> seconds.</para>
+
+      <para>The number of seconds a downloaded tarball is considered
+      fresh. If the cached tarball is stale, Nix will check whether
+      it is still up to date using the ETag header. Nix will download
+      a new version if the ETag header is unsupported, or the
+      cached ETag doesn't match.
+      </para>
+
+      <para>Setting the TTL to <literal>0</literal> forces Nix to always
+      check if the tarball is up to date.</para>
+
+      <para>Nix caches tarballs in
+      <filename>$XDG_CACHE_HOME/nix/tarballs</filename>.</para>
+
+      <para>Files fetched via <envar>NIX_PATH</envar>,
+      <function>fetchGit</function>, <function>fetchMercurial</function>,
+      <function>fetchTarball</function>, and <function>fetchurl</function>
+      respect this TTL.
+      </para>
+    </listitem>
+  </varlistentry>
 
   <varlistentry xml:id="conf-timeout"><term><literal>timeout</literal></term>
 
diff --git a/doc/manual/expressions/builtins.xml b/doc/manual/expressions/builtins.xml
index 69123fff0..4c1d618e9 100644
--- a/doc/manual/expressions/builtins.xml
+++ b/doc/manual/expressions/builtins.xml
@@ -347,7 +347,7 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation { … }
     You can change the cache timeout either on the command line with
     <option>--option tarball-ttl <replaceable>number of seconds</replaceable></option> or
     in the Nix configuration file with this option:
-    <literal>tarball-ttl <replaceable>number of seconds to cache</replaceable></literal>.
+    <literal><xref linkend="conf-tarball-ttl" /> <replaceable>number of seconds to cache</replaceable></literal>.
     </para>
 
     <para>Note that when obtaining the hash with <varname>nix-prefetch-url
@@ -513,7 +513,7 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation { … }
            fetch the latest version of a remote branch.
         </para>
         <note><para>Nix will refetch the branch in accordance to
-        <option>tarball-ttl</option>.</para></note>
+        <xref linkend="conf-tarball-ttl" />.</para></note>
         <note><para>This behavior is disabled in
         <emphasis>Pure evaluation mode</emphasis>.</para></note>
         <programlisting>builtins.fetchGit {