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xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
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xml:id="sec-conf-file"
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<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>nix.conf</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
<refmiscinfo class="source">Nix</refmiscinfo>
<refmiscinfo class="version"><xi:include href="../version.txt" parse="text"/></refmiscinfo>
</refmeta>
<refnamediv>
<refname>nix.conf</refname>
<refpurpose>Nix configuration file</refpurpose>
</refnamediv>
<refsection><title>Description</title>
<para>Nix reads settings from two configuration files:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>The system-wide configuration file
<filename><replaceable>sysconfdir</replaceable>/nix/nix.conf</filename>
(i.e. <filename>/etc/nix/nix.conf</filename> on most systems), or
<filename>$NIX_CONF_DIR/nix.conf</filename> if
<envar>NIX_CONF_DIR</envar> is set.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The user configuration file
<filename>$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nix/nix.conf</filename>, or
<filename>~/.config/nix/nix.conf</filename> if
<envar>XDG_CONFIG_HOME</envar> is not set.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>The configuration files consist of
<literal><replaceable>name</replaceable> =
<replaceable>value</replaceable></literal> pairs, one per line. Other
files can be included with a line like <literal>include
<replaceable>path</replaceable></literal>, where
<replaceable>path</replaceable> is interpreted relative to the current
conf file and a missing file is an error unless
<literal>!include</literal> is used instead.
Comments start with a <literal>#</literal> character. Here is an
example configuration file:</para>
<programlisting>
keep-outputs = true # Nice for developers
keep-derivations = true # Idem
</programlisting>
<para>You can override settings on the command line using the
<option>--option</option> flag, e.g. <literal>--option keep-outputs
false</literal>.</para>
<para>The following settings are currently available:
<variablelist>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-allowed-uris"><term><literal>allowed-uris</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>A list of URI prefixes to which access is allowed in
restricted evaluation mode. For example, when set to
<literal>https://github.com/NixOS</literal>, builtin functions
such as <function>fetchGit</function> are allowed to access
<literal>https://github.com/NixOS/patchelf.git</literal>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-allow-import-from-derivation"><term><literal>allow-import-from-derivation</literal></term>
<listitem><para>By default, Nix allows you to <function>import</function> from a derivation,
allowing building at evaluation time. With this option set to false, Nix will throw an error
when evaluating an expression that uses this feature, allowing users to ensure their evaluation
will not require any builds to take place.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-allow-new-privileges"><term><literal>allow-new-privileges</literal></term>
<listitem><para>(Linux-specific.) By default, builders on Linux
cannot acquire new privileges by calling setuid/setgid programs or
programs that have file capabilities. For example, programs such
as <command>sudo</command> or <command>ping</command> will
fail. (Note that in sandbox builds, no such programs are available
unless you bind-mount them into the sandbox via the
<option>sandbox-paths</option> option.) You can allow the
use of such programs by enabling this option. This is impure and
usually undesirable, but may be useful in certain scenarios
(e.g. to spin up containers or set up userspace network interfaces
in tests).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-allowed-users"><term><literal>allowed-users</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>A list of names of users (separated by whitespace) that
are allowed to connect to the Nix daemon. As with the
<option>trusted-users</option> option, you can specify groups by
prefixing them with <literal>@</literal>. Also, you can allow
all users by specifying <literal>*</literal>. The default is
<literal>*</literal>.</para>
<para>Note that trusted users are always allowed to connect.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-auto-optimise-store"><term><literal>auto-optimise-store</literal></term>
<listitem><para>If set to <literal>true</literal>, Nix
automatically detects files in the store that have identical
contents, and replaces them with hard links to a single copy.
This saves disk space. If set to <literal>false</literal> (the
default), you can still run <command>nix-store
--optimise</command> to get rid of duplicate
files.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-builders">
<term><literal>builders</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>A list of machines on which to perform builds. <phrase
condition="manual">See <xref linkend="chap-distributed-builds"
/> for details.</phrase></para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-builders-use-substitutes"><term><literal>builders-use-substitutes</literal></term>
<listitem><para>If set to <literal>true</literal>, Nix will instruct
remote build machines to use their own binary substitutes if available. In
practical terms, this means that remote hosts will fetch as many build
dependencies as possible from their own substitutes (e.g, from
<literal>cache.nixos.org</literal>), instead of waiting for this host to
upload them all. This can drastically reduce build times if the network
connection between this computer and the remote build host is slow. Defaults
to <literal>false</literal>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-build-users-group"><term><literal>build-users-group</literal></term>
<listitem><para>This options specifies the Unix group containing
the Nix build user accounts. In multi-user Nix installations,
builds should not be performed by the Nix account since that would
allow users to arbitrarily modify the Nix store and database by
supplying specially crafted builders; and they cannot be performed
by the calling user since that would allow him/her to influence
the build result.</para>
<para>Therefore, if this option is non-empty and specifies a valid
group, builds will be performed under the user accounts that are a
member of the group specified here (as listed in
<filename>/etc/group</filename>). Those user accounts should not
be used for any other purpose!</para>
<para>Nix will never run two builds under the same user account at
the same time. This is to prevent an obvious security hole: a
malicious user writing a Nix expression that modifies the build
result of a legitimate Nix expression being built by another user.
Therefore it is good to have as many Nix build user accounts as
you can spare. (Remember: uids are cheap.)</para>
<para>The build users should have permission to create files in
the Nix store, but not delete them. Therefore,
<filename>/nix/store</filename> should be owned by the Nix
account, its group should be the group specified here, and its
mode should be <literal>1775</literal>.</para>
<para>If the build users group is empty, builds will be performed
under the uid of the Nix process (that is, the uid of the caller
if <envar>NIX_REMOTE</envar> is empty, the uid under which the Nix
daemon runs if <envar>NIX_REMOTE</envar> is
<literal>daemon</literal>). Obviously, this should not be used in
multi-user settings with untrusted users.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-compress-build-log"><term><literal>compress-build-log</literal></term>
<listitem><para>If set to <literal>true</literal> (the default),
build logs written to <filename>/nix/var/log/nix/drvs</filename>
will be compressed on the fly using bzip2. Otherwise, they will
not be compressed.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-connect-timeout"><term><literal>connect-timeout</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>The timeout (in seconds) for establishing connections in
the binary cache substituter. It corresponds to
<command>curl</command>’s <option>--connect-timeout</option>
option.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-cores"><term><literal>cores</literal></term>
<listitem><para>Sets the value of the
<envar>NIX_BUILD_CORES</envar> environment variable in the
invocation of builders. Builders can use this variable at their
discretion to control the maximum amount of parallelism. For
instance, in Nixpkgs, if the derivation attribute
<varname>enableParallelBuilding</varname> is set to
<literal>true</literal>, the builder passes the
<option>-j<replaceable>N</replaceable></option> flag to GNU Make.
It can be overridden using the <option
linkend='opt-cores'>--cores</option> command line switch and
defaults to <literal>1</literal>. The value <literal>0</literal>
means that the builder should use all available CPU cores in the
system.</para>
<para>See also <xref linkend="chap-tuning-cores-and-jobs" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-diff-hook"><term><literal>diff-hook</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>
Absolute path to an executable capable of diffing build results.
The hook executes if <xref linkend="conf-run-diff-hook" /> is
true, and the output of a build is known to not be the same.
This program is not executed to determine if two results are the
same.
</para>
<para>
The diff hook is executed by the same user and group who ran the
build. However, the diff hook does not have write access to the
store path just built.
</para>
<para>The diff hook program receives three parameters:</para>
<orderedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
A path to the previous build's results
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
A path to the current build's results
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
The path to the build's derivation
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
The path to the build's scratch directory. This directory
will exist only if the build was run with
<option>--keep-failed</option>.
</para>
</listitem>
</orderedlist>
<para>
The stderr and stdout output from the diff hook will not be
displayed to the user. Instead, it will print to the nix-daemon's
log.
</para>
<para>When using the Nix daemon, <literal>diff-hook</literal> must
be set in the <filename>nix.conf</filename> configuration file, and
cannot be passed at the command line.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-enforce-determinism">
<term><literal>enforce-determinism</literal></term>
<listitem><para>See <xref linkend="conf-repeat" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-extra-sandbox-paths">
<term><literal>extra-sandbox-paths</literal></term>
<listitem><para>A list of additional paths appended to
<option>sandbox-paths</option>. Useful if you want to extend
its default value.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-extra-platforms"><term><literal>extra-platforms</literal></term>
<listitem><para>Platforms other than the native one which
this machine is capable of building for. This can be useful for
supporting additional architectures on compatible machines:
i686-linux can be built on x86_64-linux machines (and the default
for this setting reflects this); armv7 is backwards-compatible with
armv6 and armv5tel; some aarch64 machines can also natively run
32-bit ARM code; and qemu-user may be used to support non-native
platforms (though this may be slow and buggy). Most values for this
are not enabled by default because build systems will often
misdetect the target platform and generate incompatible code, so you
may wish to cross-check the results of using this option against
proper natively-built versions of your
derivations.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-extra-substituters"><term><literal>extra-substituters</literal></term>
<listitem><para>Additional binary caches appended to those
specified in <option>substituters</option>. When used by
unprivileged users, untrusted substituters (i.e. those not listed
in <option>trusted-substituters</option>) are silently
ignored.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-fallback"><term><literal>fallback</literal></term>
<listitem><para>If set to <literal>true</literal>, Nix will fall
back to building from source if a binary substitute fails. This
is equivalent to the <option>--fallback</option> flag. The
default is <literal>false</literal>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-fsync-metadata"><term><literal>fsync-metadata</literal></term>
<listitem><para>If set to <literal>true</literal>, changes to the
Nix store metadata (in <filename>/nix/var/nix/db</filename>) are
synchronously flushed to disk. This improves robustness in case
of system crashes, but reduces performance. The default is
<literal>true</literal>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-hashed-mirrors"><term><literal>hashed-mirrors</literal></term>
<listitem><para>A list of web servers used by
<function>builtins.fetchurl</function> to obtain files by
hash. The default is
<literal>http://tarballs.nixos.org/</literal>. Given a hash type
<replaceable>ht</replaceable> and a base-16 hash
<replaceable>h</replaceable>, Nix will try to download the file
from
<literal>hashed-mirror/<replaceable>ht</replaceable>/<replaceable>h</replaceable></literal>.
This allows files to be downloaded even if they have disappeared
from their original URI. For example, given the default mirror
<literal>http://tarballs.nixos.org/</literal>, when building the derivation
<programlisting>
builtins.fetchurl {
url = https://example.org/foo-1.2.3.tar.xz;
sha256 = "2c26b46b68ffc68ff99b453c1d30413413422d706483bfa0f98a5e886266e7ae";
}
</programlisting>
Nix will attempt to download this file from
<literal>http://tarballs.nixos.org/sha256/2c26b46b68ffc68ff99b453c1d30413413422d706483bfa0f98a5e886266e7ae</literal>
first. If it is not available there, if will try the original URI.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-http-connections"><term><literal>http-connections</literal></term>
<listitem><para>The maximum number of parallel TCP connections
used to fetch files from binary caches and by other downloads. It
defaults to 25. 0 means no limit.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-keep-build-log"><term><literal>keep-build-log</literal></term>
<listitem><para>If set to <literal>true</literal> (the default),
Nix will write the build log of a derivation (i.e. the standard
output and error of its builder) to the directory
<filename>/nix/var/log/nix/drvs</filename>. The build log can be
retrieved using the command <command>nix-store -l
<replaceable>path</replaceable></command>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-keep-derivations"><term><literal>keep-derivations</literal></term>
<listitem><para>If <literal>true</literal> (default), the garbage
collector will keep the derivations from which non-garbage store
paths were built. If <literal>false</literal>, they will be
deleted unless explicitly registered as a root (or reachable from
other roots).</para>
<para>Keeping derivation around is useful for querying and
traceability (e.g., it allows you to ask with what dependencies or
options a store path was built), so by default this option is on.
Turn it off to save a bit of disk space (or a lot if
<literal>keep-outputs</literal> is also turned on).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-keep-env-derivations"><term><literal>keep-env-derivations</literal></term>
<listitem><para>If <literal>false</literal> (default), derivations
are not stored in Nix user environments. That is, the derivations of
any build-time-only dependencies may be garbage-collected.</para>
<para>If <literal>true</literal>, when you add a Nix derivation to
a user environment, the path of the derivation is stored in the
user environment. Thus, the derivation will not be
garbage-collected until the user environment generation is deleted
(<command>nix-env --delete-generations</command>). To prevent
build-time-only dependencies from being collected, you should also
turn on <literal>keep-outputs</literal>.</para>
<para>The difference between this option and
<literal>keep-derivations</literal> is that this one is
“sticky”: it applies to any user environment created while this
option was enabled, while <literal>keep-derivations</literal>
only applies at the moment the garbage collector is
run.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-keep-outputs"><term><literal>keep-outputs</literal></term>
<listitem><para>If <literal>true</literal>, the garbage collector
will keep the outputs of non-garbage derivations. If
<literal>false</literal> (default), outputs will be deleted unless
they are GC roots themselves (or reachable from other roots).</para>
<para>In general, outputs must be registered as roots separately.
However, even if the output of a derivation is registered as a
root, the collector will still delete store paths that are used
only at build time (e.g., the C compiler, or source tarballs
downloaded from the network). To prevent it from doing so, set
this option to <literal>true</literal>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-max-build-log-size"><term><literal>max-build-log-size</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>This option defines the maximum number of bytes that a
builder can write to its stdout/stderr. If the builder exceeds
this limit, it’s killed. A value of <literal>0</literal> (the
default) means that there is no limit.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-max-free"><term><literal>max-free</literal></term>
<listitem><para>When a garbage collection is triggered by the
<literal>min-free</literal> option, it stops as soon as
<literal>max-free</literal> bytes are available. The default is
infinity (i.e. delete all garbage).</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-max-jobs"><term><literal>max-jobs</literal></term>
<listitem><para>This option defines the maximum number of jobs
that Nix will try to build in parallel. The default is
<literal>1</literal>. The special value <literal>auto</literal>
causes Nix to use the number of CPUs in your system. <literal>0</literal>
is useful when using remote builders to prevent any local builds (except for
<literal>preferLocalBuild</literal> derivation attribute which executes locally
regardless). It can be
overridden using the <option
linkend='opt-max-jobs'>--max-jobs</option> (<option>-j</option>)
command line switch.</para>
<para>See also <xref linkend="chap-tuning-cores-and-jobs" />.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-max-silent-time"><term><literal>max-silent-time</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>This option defines the maximum number of seconds that a
builder can go without producing any data on standard output or
standard error. This is useful (for instance in an automated
build system) to catch builds that are stuck in an infinite
loop, or to catch remote builds that are hanging due to network
problems. It can be overridden using the <option
linkend="opt-max-silent-time">--max-silent-time</option> command
line switch.</para>
<para>The value <literal>0</literal> means that there is no
timeout. This is also the default.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-min-free"><term><literal>min-free</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>When free disk space in <filename>/nix/store</filename>
drops below <literal>min-free</literal> during a build, Nix
performs a garbage-collection until <literal>max-free</literal>
bytes are available or there is no more garbage. A value of
<literal>0</literal> (the default) disables this feature.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-narinfo-cache-negative-ttl"><term><literal>narinfo-cache-negative-ttl</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>The TTL in seconds for negative lookups. If a store path is
queried from a substituter but was not found, there will be a
negative lookup cached in the local disk cache database for the
specified duration.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-narinfo-cache-positive-ttl"><term><literal>narinfo-cache-positive-ttl</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>The TTL in seconds for positive lookups. If a store path is
queried from a substituter, the result of the query will be cached
in the local disk cache database including some of the NAR
metadata. The default TTL is a month, setting a shorter TTL for
positive lookups can be useful for binary caches that have
frequent garbage collection, in which case having a more frequent
cache invalidation would prevent trying to pull the path again and
failing with a hash mismatch if the build isn't reproducible.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-netrc-file"><term><literal>netrc-file</literal></term>
<listitem><para>If set to an absolute path to a <filename>netrc</filename>
file, Nix will use the HTTP authentication credentials in this file when
trying to download from a remote host through HTTP or HTTPS. Defaults to
<filename>$NIX_CONF_DIR/netrc</filename>.</para>
<para>The <filename>netrc</filename> file consists of a list of
accounts in the following format:
<screen>
machine <replaceable>my-machine</replaceable>
login <replaceable>my-username</replaceable>
password <replaceable>my-password</replaceable>
</screen>
For the exact syntax, see <link
xlink:href="https://ec.haxx.se/usingcurl-netrc.html">the
<literal>curl</literal> documentation.</link></para>
<note><para>This must be an absolute path, and <literal>~</literal>
is not resolved. For example, <filename>~/.netrc</filename> won't
resolve to your home directory's <filename>.netrc</filename>.</para></note>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-pre-build-hook"><term><literal>pre-build-hook</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>If set, the path to a program that can set extra
derivation-specific settings for this system. This is used for settings
that can't be captured by the derivation model itself and are too variable
between different versions of the same system to be hard-coded into nix.
</para>
<para>The hook is passed the derivation path and, if sandboxes are enabled,
the sandbox directory. It can then modify the sandbox and send a series of
commands to modify various settings to stdout. The currently recognized
commands are:</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry xml:id="extra-sandbox-paths">
<term><literal>extra-sandbox-paths</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>Pass a list of files and directories to be included in the
sandbox for this build. One entry per line, terminated by an empty
line. Entries have the same format as
<literal>sandbox-paths</literal>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-post-build-hook">
<term><literal>post-build-hook</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>Optional. The path to a program to execute after each build.</para>
<para>This option is only settable in the global
<filename>nix.conf</filename>, or on the command line by trusted
users.</para>
<para>When using the nix-daemon, the daemon executes the hook as
<literal>root</literal>. If the nix-daemon is not involved, the
hook runs as the user executing the nix-build.</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>The hook executes after an evaluation-time build.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The hook does not execute on substituted paths.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The hook's output always goes to the user's terminal.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>If the hook fails, the build succeeds but no further builds execute.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>The hook executes synchronously, and blocks other builds from progressing while it runs.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>The program executes with no arguments. The program's environment
contains the following environment variables:</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><envar>DRV_PATH</envar></term>
<listitem>
<para>The derivation for the built paths.</para>
<para>Example:
<literal>/nix/store/5nihn1a7pa8b25l9zafqaqibznlvvp3f-bash-4.4-p23.drv</literal>
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><envar>OUT_PATHS</envar></term>
<listitem>
<para>Output paths of the built derivation, separated by a space character.</para>
<para>Example:
<literal>/nix/store/zf5lbh336mnzf1nlswdn11g4n2m8zh3g-bash-4.4-p23-dev
/nix/store/rjxwxwv1fpn9wa2x5ssk5phzwlcv4mna-bash-4.4-p23-doc
/nix/store/6bqvbzjkcp9695dq0dpl5y43nvy37pq1-bash-4.4-p23-info
/nix/store/r7fng3kk3vlpdlh2idnrbn37vh4imlj2-bash-4.4-p23-man
/nix/store/xfghy8ixrhz3kyy6p724iv3cxji088dx-bash-4.4-p23</literal>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>See <xref linkend="chap-post-build-hook" /> for an example
implementation.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-repeat"><term><literal>repeat</literal></term>
<listitem><para>How many times to repeat builds to check whether
they are deterministic. The default value is 0. If the value is
non-zero, every build is repeated the specified number of
times. If the contents of any of the runs differs from the
previous ones and <xref linkend="conf-enforce-determinism" /> is
true, the build is rejected and the resulting store paths are not
registered as “valid” in Nix’s database.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-require-sigs"><term><literal>require-sigs</literal></term>
<listitem><para>If set to <literal>true</literal> (the default),
any non-content-addressed path added or copied to the Nix store
(e.g. when substituting from a binary cache) must have a valid
signature, that is, be signed using one of the keys listed in
<option>trusted-public-keys</option> or
<option>secret-key-files</option>. Set to <literal>false</literal>
to disable signature checking.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-restrict-eval"><term><literal>restrict-eval</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>If set to <literal>true</literal>, the Nix evaluator will
not allow access to any files outside of the Nix search path (as
set via the <envar>NIX_PATH</envar> environment variable or the
<option>-I</option> option), or to URIs outside of
<option>allowed-uri</option>. The default is
<literal>false</literal>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-run-diff-hook"><term><literal>run-diff-hook</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>
If true, enable the execution of <xref linkend="conf-diff-hook" />.
</para>
<para>
When using the Nix daemon, <literal>run-diff-hook</literal> must
be set in the <filename>nix.conf</filename> configuration file,
and cannot be passed at the command line.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-sandbox"><term><literal>sandbox</literal></term>
<listitem><para>If set to <literal>true</literal>, builds will be
performed in a <emphasis>sandboxed environment</emphasis>, i.e.,
they’re isolated from the normal file system hierarchy and will
only see their dependencies in the Nix store, the temporary build
directory, private versions of <filename>/proc</filename>,
<filename>/dev</filename>, <filename>/dev/shm</filename> and
<filename>/dev/pts</filename> (on Linux), and the paths configured with the
<link linkend='conf-sandbox-paths'><literal>sandbox-paths</literal>
option</link>. This is useful to prevent undeclared dependencies
on files in directories such as <filename>/usr/bin</filename>. In
addition, on Linux, builds run in private PID, mount, network, IPC
and UTS namespaces to isolate them from other processes in the
system (except that fixed-output derivations do not run in private
network namespace to ensure they can access the network).</para>
<para>Currently, sandboxing only work on Linux and macOS. The use
of a sandbox requires that Nix is run as root (so you should use
the <link linkend='conf-build-users-group'>“build users”
feature</link> to perform the actual builds under different users
than root).</para>
<para>If this option is set to <literal>relaxed</literal>, then
fixed-output derivations and derivations that have the
<varname>__noChroot</varname> attribute set to
<literal>true</literal> do not run in sandboxes.</para>
<para>The default is <literal>true</literal> on Linux and
<literal>false</literal> on all other platforms.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-sandbox-dev-shm-size"><term><literal>sandbox-dev-shm-size</literal></term>
<listitem><para>This option determines the maximum size of the
<literal>tmpfs</literal> filesystem mounted on
<filename>/dev/shm</filename> in Linux sandboxes. For the format,
see the description of the <option>size</option> option of
<literal>tmpfs</literal> in
<citerefentry><refentrytitle>mount</refentrytitle><manvolnum>8</manvolnum></citerefentry>. The
default is <literal>50%</literal>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-sandbox-paths">
<term><literal>sandbox-paths</literal></term>
<listitem><para>A list of paths bind-mounted into Nix sandbox
environments. You can use the syntax
<literal><replaceable>target</replaceable>=<replaceable>source</replaceable></literal>
to mount a path in a different location in the sandbox; for
instance, <literal>/bin=/nix-bin</literal> will mount the path
<literal>/nix-bin</literal> as <literal>/bin</literal> inside the
sandbox. If <replaceable>source</replaceable> is followed by
<literal>?</literal>, then it is not an error if
<replaceable>source</replaceable> does not exist; for example,
<literal>/dev/nvidiactl?</literal> specifies that
<filename>/dev/nvidiactl</filename> will only be mounted in the
sandbox if it exists in the host filesystem.</para>
<para>Depending on how Nix was built, the default value for this option
may be empty or provide <filename>/bin/sh</filename> as a
bind-mount of <command>bash</command>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-secret-key-files"><term><literal>secret-key-files</literal></term>
<listitem><para>A whitespace-separated list of files containing
secret (private) keys. These are used to sign locally-built
paths. They can be generated using <command>nix-store
--generate-binary-cache-key</command>. The corresponding public
key can be distributed to other users, who can add it to
<option>trusted-public-keys</option> in their
<filename>nix.conf</filename>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-show-trace"><term><literal>show-trace</literal></term>
<listitem><para>Causes Nix to print out a stack trace in case of Nix
expression evaluation errors.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-substitute"><term><literal>substitute</literal></term>
<listitem><para>If set to <literal>true</literal> (default), Nix
will use binary substitutes if available. This option can be
disabled to force building from source.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-stalled-download-timeout"><term><literal>stalled-download-timeout</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>The timeout (in seconds) for receiving data from servers
during download. Nix cancels idle downloads after this timeout's
duration.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-substituters"><term><literal>substituters</literal></term>
<listitem><para>A list of URLs of substituters, separated by
whitespace. The default is
<literal>https://cache.nixos.org</literal>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-system"><term><literal>system</literal></term>
<listitem><para>This option specifies the canonical Nix system
name of the current installation, such as
<literal>i686-linux</literal> or
<literal>x86_64-darwin</literal>. Nix can only build derivations
whose <literal>system</literal> attribute equals the value
specified here. In general, it never makes sense to modify this
value from its default, since you can use it to ‘lie’ about the
platform you are building on (e.g., perform a Mac OS build on a
Linux machine; the result would obviously be wrong). It only
makes sense if the Nix binaries can run on multiple platforms,
e.g., ‘universal binaries’ that run on <literal>x86_64-linux</literal> and
<literal>i686-linux</literal>.</para>
<para>It defaults to the canonical Nix system name detected by
<filename>configure</filename> at build time.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-system-features"><term><literal>system-features</literal></term>
<listitem><para>A set of system “features” supported by this
machine, e.g. <literal>kvm</literal>. Derivations can express a
dependency on such features through the derivation attribute
<varname>requiredSystemFeatures</varname>. For example, the
attribute
<programlisting>
requiredSystemFeatures = [ "kvm" ];
</programlisting>
ensures that the derivation can only be built on a machine with
the <literal>kvm</literal> feature.</para>
<para>This setting by default includes <literal>kvm</literal> if
<filename>/dev/kvm</filename> is accessible, and the
pseudo-features <literal>nixos-test</literal>,
<literal>benchmark</literal> and <literal>big-parallel</literal>
that are used in Nixpkgs to route builds to specific
machines.</para>
</listitem>
</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>
<listitem>
<para>This option defines the maximum number of seconds that a
builder can run. This is useful (for instance in an automated
build system) to catch builds that are stuck in an infinite loop
but keep writing to their standard output or standard error. It
can be overridden using the <option
linkend="opt-timeout">--timeout</option> command line
switch.</para>
<para>The value <literal>0</literal> means that there is no
timeout. This is also the default.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-trace-function-calls"><term><literal>trace-function-calls</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>Default: <literal>false</literal>.</para>
<para>If set to <literal>true</literal>, the Nix evaluator will
trace every function call. Nix will print a log message at the
"vomit" level for every function entrance and function exit.</para>
<informalexample><screen>
function-trace entered undefined position at 1565795816999559622
function-trace exited undefined position at 1565795816999581277
function-trace entered /nix/store/.../example.nix:226:41 at 1565795253249935150
function-trace exited /nix/store/.../example.nix:226:41 at 1565795253249941684
</screen></informalexample>
<para>The <literal>undefined position</literal> means the function
call is a builtin.</para>
<para>Use the <literal>contrib/stack-collapse.py</literal> script
distributed with the Nix source code to convert the trace logs
in to a format suitable for <command>flamegraph.pl</command>.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-trusted-public-keys"><term><literal>trusted-public-keys</literal></term>
<listitem><para>A whitespace-separated list of public keys. When
paths are copied from another Nix store (such as a binary cache),
they must be signed with one of these keys. For example:
<literal>cache.nixos.org-1:6NCHdD59X431o0gWypbMrAURkbJ16ZPMQFGspcDShjY=
hydra.nixos.org-1:CNHJZBh9K4tP3EKF6FkkgeVYsS3ohTl+oS0Qa8bezVs=</literal>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-trusted-substituters"><term><literal>trusted-substituters</literal></term>
<listitem><para>A list of URLs of substituters, separated by
whitespace. These are not used by default, but can be enabled by
users of the Nix daemon by specifying <literal>--option
substituters <replaceable>urls</replaceable></literal> on the
command line. Unprivileged users are only allowed to pass a
subset of the URLs listed in <literal>substituters</literal> and
<literal>trusted-substituters</literal>.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-trusted-users"><term><literal>trusted-users</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>A list of names of users (separated by whitespace) that
have additional rights when connecting to the Nix daemon, such
as the ability to specify additional binary caches, or to import
unsigned NARs. You can also specify groups by prefixing them
with <literal>@</literal>; for instance,
<literal>@wheel</literal> means all users in the
<literal>wheel</literal> group. The default is
<literal>root</literal>.</para>
<warning><para>Adding a user to <option>trusted-users</option>
is essentially equivalent to giving that user root access to the
system. For example, the user can set
<option>sandbox-paths</option> and thereby obtain read access to
directories that are otherwise inacessible to
them.</para></warning>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
<refsection>
<title>Deprecated Settings</title>
<para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-binary-caches">
<term><literal>binary-caches</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>binary-caches</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-substituters" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-binary-cache-public-keys">
<term><literal>binary-cache-public-keys</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>binary-cache-public-keys</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-trusted-public-keys" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-build-compress-log">
<term><literal>build-compress-log</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>build-compress-log</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-compress-build-log" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-build-cores">
<term><literal>build-cores</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>build-cores</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-cores" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-build-extra-chroot-dirs">
<term><literal>build-extra-chroot-dirs</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>build-extra-chroot-dirs</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-extra-sandbox-paths" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-build-extra-sandbox-paths">
<term><literal>build-extra-sandbox-paths</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>build-extra-sandbox-paths</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-extra-sandbox-paths" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-build-fallback">
<term><literal>build-fallback</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>build-fallback</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-fallback" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-build-max-jobs">
<term><literal>build-max-jobs</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>build-max-jobs</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-max-jobs" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-build-max-log-size">
<term><literal>build-max-log-size</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>build-max-log-size</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-max-build-log-size" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-build-max-silent-time">
<term><literal>build-max-silent-time</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>build-max-silent-time</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-max-silent-time" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-build-repeat">
<term><literal>build-repeat</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>build-repeat</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-repeat" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-build-timeout">
<term><literal>build-timeout</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>build-timeout</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-timeout" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-build-use-chroot">
<term><literal>build-use-chroot</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>build-use-chroot</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-sandbox" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-build-use-sandbox">
<term><literal>build-use-sandbox</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>build-use-sandbox</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-sandbox" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-build-use-substitutes">
<term><literal>build-use-substitutes</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>build-use-substitutes</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-substitute" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-gc-keep-derivations">
<term><literal>gc-keep-derivations</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>gc-keep-derivations</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-keep-derivations" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-gc-keep-outputs">
<term><literal>gc-keep-outputs</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>gc-keep-outputs</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-keep-outputs" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-env-keep-derivations">
<term><literal>env-keep-derivations</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>env-keep-derivations</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-keep-env-derivations" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-extra-binary-caches">
<term><literal>extra-binary-caches</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>extra-binary-caches</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-extra-substituters" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry xml:id="conf-trusted-binary-caches">
<term><literal>trusted-binary-caches</literal></term>
<listitem><para><emphasis>Deprecated:</emphasis>
<literal>trusted-binary-caches</literal> is now an alias to
<xref linkend="conf-trusted-substituters" />.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</para>
</refsection>
</refsection>
</refentry>
