though). In particular it's now much easier to register a GC root.
Just place a symlink to whatever store path it is that you want to
keep in /nix/var/nix/gcroots.
This simplifies garbage collection and `nix-store --query
--requisites' since we no longer need to treat derivations
specially.
* Better maintaining of the invariants, e.g., setReferences() can only
be called on a valid/substitutable path.
closure of the referers relation rather than the references
relation, i.e., the set of all paths that directly or indirectly
refer to the given path. Note that contrary to the references
closure this set is not fixed; it can change as paths are added to
or removed from the store.
promise :-) This allows derivations to specify on *what* output
paths of input derivations they are dependent. This helps to
prevent unnecessary downloads. For instance, a build might be
dependent on the `devel' and `lib' outputs of some library
component, but not the `docs' output.
graph. That is, `nix-store --query --references PATH' shows the set
of paths referenced by PATH, and `nix-store --query --referers PATH'
shows the set of paths referencing PATH.
`derivations.cc', etc.
* Store the SHA-256 content hash of store paths in the database after
they have been built/added. This is so that we can check whether
the store has been messed with (a la `rpm --verify').
* When registering path validity, verify that the closure property
holds.
representation of closures as ATerms in the Nix store. Instead, the
file system pointer graph is now stored in the Nix database. This
has many advantages:
- It greatly simplifies the implementation (we can drop the notion
of `successors', and so on).
- It makes registering roots for the garbage collector much easier.
Instead of specifying the closure expression as a root, you can
simply specify the store path that must be retained as a root.
This could not be done previously, since there was no way to find
the closure store expression containing a given store path.
- Better traceability: it is now possible to query what paths are
referenced by a path, and what paths refer to a path.
* Formalise the notion of fixed-output derivations, i.e., derivations
for which a cryptographic hash of the output is known in advance.
Changes to such derivations should not propagate upwards through the
dependency graph. Previously this was done by specifying the hash
component of the output path through the `id' attribute, but this is
insecure since you can lie about it (i.e., you can specify any hash
and then produce a completely different output). Now the
responsibility for checking the output is moved from the builder to
Nix itself.
A fixed-output derivation can be created by specifying the
`outputHash' and `outputHashAlgo' attributes, the latter taking
values `md5', `sha1', and `sha256', and the former specifying the
actual hash in hexadecimal or in base-32 (auto-detected by looking
at the length of the attribute value). MD5 is included for
compatibility but should be considered deprecated.
* Removed the `drvPath' pseudo-attribute in derivation results. It's
no longer necessary.
* Cleaned up the support for multiple output paths in derivation store
expressions. Each output now has a unique identifier (e.g., `out',
`devel', `docs'). Previously there was no way to tell output paths
apart at the store expression level.
* `nix-hash' now has a flag `--base32' to specify that the hash should
be printed in base-32 notation.
* `fetchurl' accepts parameters `sha256' and `sha1' in addition to
`md5'.
* `nix-prefetch-url' now prints out a SHA-1 hash in base-32. (TODO: a
flag to specify the hash.)
bits, then encode them in a radix-32 representation (using digits
and letters except e, o, u, and t). This produces store paths like
/nix/store/4i0zb0z7f88mwghjirkz702a71dcfivn-aterm-2.3.1. The nice
thing about this is that the hash part of the file name is still 32
characters, as before with MD5.
(Of course, shortening SHA-256 to 160 bits makes it no better than
SHA-160 in theory, but hopefully it's a bit more resistant to
attacks; it's certainly a lot slower.)
* Start cleaning up unique store path generation (they weren't always
unique; in particular the suffix ("-aterm-2.2", "-builder.sh") was
not part of the hash, therefore changes to the suffix would cause
multiple store objects with the same hash).
http://www.daemonology.net/bsdiff/bsdiff-4.2.tar.gz) into the source
tree. The license is a bit peculiar, but it does allow verbatim
copying, which is what we do here (i.e., so don't make any changes
to the sources).
- Drop the store expression. So now a substitute is just a
command-line invocation (a program name + arguments). If you
register a substitute you are responsible for registering the
expression that built it (if any) as a root of the garbage
collector.
- Drop the substitutes-rev DB table.
Instead we generate data bindings (build and match functions) for
the constructors specified in `constructors.def'. In particular
this removes the conversions between AFuns and strings, and Nix
expression evaluation now seems 3 to 4 times faster.
out the AST as an ATerm.
* Mode `--eval-only' to parse and evaluate the input, and print the
resulting normal form as an ATerm.
Neither of these modes require store/DB write permission.
The expression `with E1; E2' evaluates to E2 with all bindings in
the attribute set E1 substituted. E.g.,
with {x = 123;}; x
evaluates to 123. That is, the attribute set E1 is in scope in E2.
This is particularly useful when importing files containing lots
definitions. E.g., instead of
let {
inherit (import ./foo.nix) a b c d e f;
body = ... a ... f ...;
}
we can now say
with import ./foo.nix;
... a ... f ...
I.e., we don't have to say what variables should be brought into scope.
permission to the Nix store or database. E.g., `nix-env -qa' will
work, but `nix-env -qas' won't (the latter needs DB access). The
option `--readonly-mode' forces this mode; otherwise, it's only
activated when the database cannot be opened.
derivation, since NormalisationGoal would first run a
NormalisationGoal on the subderivation (a no-op, since in a
situation where we need fallback the successor is known), and then
runs a RealisationGoal on the normal form, which then cannot do a
fallback because it doesn't know the derivation expression for which
it is a normal form.
Tossed out the 2-phase normalisation/realisation in
NormalisationGoal and SubstitutionGoal since it's no longer needed -
a RealisationGoal will run a NormalisationGoal if necessary.
profile. Arguments are either generation number, or `old' to delete
all non-current generations. Typical use:
$ nix-env --delete-generations old
$ nix-collect-garbage
* istringstream -> string2Int.
Previously there was the problem that all files read by nix-env
etc. should be reachable and readable by the Nix user. So for
instance building a Nix expression in your home directory meant that
the home directory should have at least g+x or o+x permission so
that the Nix user could reach the Nix expression. Now we just
switch back to the original user just prior to reading sources and
the like. The places where this happens are somewhat arbitrary,
however. Any scope that has a live SwitchToOriginalUser object in
it is executed as the original user.
* Back out r1385. setreuid() sets the saved uid to the new
real/effective uid, which prevents us from switching back to the
original uid. setresuid() doesn't have this problem (although the
manpage has a bug: specifying -1 for the saved uid doesn't leave it
unchanged; an explicit value must be specified).
more common than the latter (which exists only on Linux and
FreeBSD). We don't really care about dropping the saved IDs since
there apparently is no way to quiry them in any case, so it can't
influence the build (unlike the effective IDs which are checked by
Perl for instance).
setuid installation, since the calling user may have a more fascist
umask (say, 0077), which would cause the store objects built by Nix
to be unreadable to anyone other than the Nix user.
unreachable paths that haven't been used for N hours. For instance,
`nix-collect-garbage --min-age 168' only deletes paths that haven't
been accessed in the last week.
This is useful for instance in the build farm where many derivations
can be shared between consecutive builds, and we wouldn't want a
garbage collect to throw them all away. We could of course register
them as roots, but then we'd to unregister them at some point, which
would be a pain to manage. The `--min-age' flag gives us a sort of
MRU caching scheme.
BUG: this really shouldn't be in gc.cc since that violates
mechanism/policy separation.
doesn't just print the set of paths that should be deleted. So
there is no more need to pipe the result into `nix-store --delete'
(which doesn't even exist anymore).
suboperations `--print-live', `--print-dead', and `--delete'. The
roots are not determined by nix-store; they are read from standard
input. This is to make it easy to customise what the roots are.
The collector now no longer fails when store expressions are missing
(which legally happens when using substitutes). It never tries to
fetch paths through substitutes.
TODO: acquire a global lock on the store while garbage collecting.
* Removed `nix-store --delete'.
set the real uid and gid to the effective uid and gid, the Nix
binaries can be installed as owned by the Nix user and group instead
of root, so no root involvement of any kind is necessary.
Linux and FreeBSD have these functions.
users.
If the configure flag `--enable-setuid' is used, the Nix programs
nix-env, nix-store, etc. are installed with the setuid bit turned on
so that they are executed as the user and group specified by
`--with-nix-user=USER' and `--with-nix-group=GROUP', respectively
(with defaults `nix' and `nix').
The setuid programs drop all special privileges if they are executed
by a user who is not a member of the Nix group.
The setuid feature is a quick hack to enable sharing of a Nix
installation between users who trust each other. It is not
generally secure, since any user in the Nix group can modify (by
building an appropriate derivation) any object in the store, and for
instance inject trojans into binaries used by other users.
The setuid programs are owned by root, not the Nix user. This is
because on Unix normal users cannot change the real uid, only the
effective uid. Many programs don't work properly when the real uid
differs from the effective uid. For instance, Perl will turn on
taint mode. However, the setuid programs drop all root privileges
immediately, changing all uids and gids to the Nix user and group.
* Builder output is written to standard error by default.
* The option `-B' is gone.
* The option `-Q' suppresses builder output.
The result of this is that most Nix invocations shouldn't need any
flags w.r.t. logging.
derivation disables scanning for dependencies. Use at your own
risk. This is a quick hack to speed up UML image generation (image
are very big, say 1 GB).
It would be better if the scanner were faster, and didn't read the
whole file into memory.
system types other than the current system. I.e., `nix-env -i'
won't install derivations for other system types, and `nix-env -q'
won't show them. The flag `--system-filter SYSTEM' can be used to
override the system type used for filtering (but not for
building!). The value `*' can be used not to filter anything.
Whenever Nix attempts to realise a derivation for which a closure is
already known, but this closure cannot be realised, fall back on
normalising the derivation.
The most common scenario in which this is useful is when we have
registered substitutes in order to perform binary distribution from,
say, a network repository. If the repository is down, the
realisation of the derivation will fail. When this option is
specified, Nix will build the derivation instead. Thus, binary
installation falls back on a source installation. This option is
not the default since it is generally not desirable for a transient
failure in obtaining the substitutes to lead to a full build from
source (with the related consumption of resources).
much as possible. (This is similar to GNU Make's `-k' flag.)
* Refactoring to implement this: previously we just bombed out when
a build failed, but now we have to clean up. In particular this
means that goals must be freed quickly --- they shouldn't hang
around until the worker exits. So the worker now maintains weak
pointers in order not to prevent garbage collection.
* Documented the `-k' and `-j' flags.
