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author | Mikey Ariel <mariel@redhat.com> | 2014-08-27T16·41+0200 |
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committer | Mikey Ariel <mariel@redhat.com> | 2014-08-27T16·41+0200 |
commit | 8901acc97664aa8ebf687ee904428aa57a5192be (patch) | |
tree | f7bfefccbc2a08cc49eb37b424758a6158b29b58 /doc/manual/installation/multi-user.xml | |
parent | 3f0a4bf0e7254edddaa864d23893d98da23c2977 (diff) |
Restructuring the Nix manual
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/manual/installation/multi-user.xml')
-rw-r--r-- | doc/manual/installation/multi-user.xml | 106 |
1 files changed, 106 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/doc/manual/installation/multi-user.xml b/doc/manual/installation/multi-user.xml new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..2eb4c258fcf7 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/manual/installation/multi-user.xml @@ -0,0 +1,106 @@ +<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" + xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" + xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" + version="5.0" + xml:id="ssec-multi-user"> + +<title>Multi-User Mode</title> + +<para>To allow a Nix store to be shared safely among multiple users, +it is important that users are not able to run builders that modify +the Nix store or database in arbitrary ways, or that interfere with +builds started by other users. If they could do so, they could +install a Trojan horse in some package and compromise the accounts of +other users.</para> + +<para>To prevent this, the Nix store and database are owned by some +privileged user (usually <literal>root</literal>) and builders are +executed under special user accounts (usually named +<literal>nixbld1</literal>, <literal>nixbld2</literal>, etc.). When a +unprivileged user runs a Nix command, actions that operate on the Nix +store (such as builds) are forwarded to a <emphasis>Nix +daemon</emphasis> running under the owner of the Nix store/database +that performs the operation.</para> + +<note>Multi-user mode has one important limitation: only +<systemitem class="username">root</systemitem> can run <command +linkend="sec-nix-pull">nix-pull</command> to register the availability +of pre-built binaries. However, those registrations are shared by all +users, so they still get the benefit from <command>nix-pull</command>s +done by <systemitem class="username">root</systemitem>.</note> + + +<simplesect> + +<title>Setting up the build users</title> + +<para>The <emphasis>build users</emphasis> are the special UIDs under +which builds are performed. They should all be members of the +<emphasis>build users group</emphasis> <literal>nixbld</literal>. +This group should have no other members. The build users should not +be members of any other group. On Linux, you can create the group and +users as follows: + +<screen> +$ groupadd -r nixbld +$ for n in $(seq 1 10); do useradd -c "Nix build user $n" \ + -d /var/empty -g nixbld -G nixbld -M -N -r -s "$(which nologin)" \ + nixbld$n; done +</screen> + +This creates 10 build users. There can never be more concurrent builds +than the number of build users, so you may want to increase this if +you expect to do many builds at the same time.</para> + +</simplesect> + + +<simplesect> + +<title>Running the daemon</title> + +<para>The <link linkend="sec-nix-daemon">Nix daemon</link> should be +started as follows (as <literal>root</literal>): + +<screen> +$ nix-daemon</screen> + +You’ll want to put that line somewhere in your system’s boot +scripts.</para> + +<para>To let unprivileged users use the daemon, they should set the +<link linkend="envar-remote"><envar>NIX_REMOTE</envar> environment +variable</link> to <literal>daemon</literal>. So you should put a +line like + +<programlisting> +export NIX_REMOTE=daemon</programlisting> + +into the users’ login scripts.</para> + +</simplesect> + +<simplesect> + +<title>Restricting access</title> + +<para>To limit which users can perform Nix operations, you can use the +permissions on the directory +<filename>/nix/var/nix/daemon-socket</filename>. For instance, if you +want to restrict the use of Nix to the members of a group called +<literal>nix-users</literal>, do + +<screen> +$ chgrp nix-users /nix/var/nix/daemon-socket +$ chmod ug=rwx,o= /nix/var/nix/daemon-socket +</screen> + +This way, users who are not in the <literal>nix-users</literal> group +cannot connect to the Unix domain socket +<filename>/nix/var/nix/daemon-socket/socket</filename>, so they cannot +perform Nix operations.</para> + +</simplesect> + + +</section> \ No newline at end of file |