nix3-profile(1)

    Warning
    This program is experimental and its interface is subject to change.

Name

nix profile - manage Nix profiles

Synopsis

nix profile [option…] subcommand

where subcommand is one of the following:

•   nix profile diff-closures - show the closure difference between each version of a profile

•   nix profile history - show all versions of a profile

•   nix profile install - install a package into a profile

•   nix profile list - list installed packages

•   nix profile remove - remove packages from a profile

•   nix profile rollback - roll back to the previous version or a specified version of a profile

•   nix profile upgrade - upgrade packages using their most recent flake

•   nix profile wipe-history - delete non-current versions of a profile

Description

nix profile allows you to create and manage Nix profiles. A Nix profile is a set of packages that can be installed and upgraded independently from each other. Nix profiles are versioned, allowing them to be rolled back easily.

Files

  Profiles

A directory that contains links to profiles managed by nix-env and nix profile:

•   $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profiles for regular users

•   $NIX_STATE_DIR/profiles/per-user/root if the user is root

A profile is a directory of symlinks to files in the Nix store.

  Filesystem layout

Profiles are versioned as follows. When using a profile named path, path is a symlink to path-N-link, where N is the version of the profile. In turn, path-N-link is a symlink to a path in the Nix store. For example:

    $ ls -l ~alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile*
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 alice users 14 Nov 25 14:35 /home/alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile -> profile-7-link
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 alice users 51 Oct 28 16:18 /home/alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-5-link -> /nix/store/q69xad13ghpf7ir87h0b2gd28lafjj1j-profile
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 alice users 51 Oct 29 13:20 /home/alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-6-link -> /nix/store/6bvhpysd7vwz7k3b0pndn7ifi5xr32dg-profile
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 alice users 51 Nov 25 14:35 /home/alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-7-link -> /nix/store/mp0x6xnsg0b8qhswy6riqvimai4gm677-profile

Each of these symlinks is a root for the Nix garbage collector.

The contents of the store path corresponding to each version of the profile is a tree of symlinks to the files of the installed packages, e.g.

    $ ll -R ~eelco/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-7-link/
    /home/eelco/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-7-link/:
    total 20
    dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan  1  1970 bin
    -r--r--r-- 2 root root 1402 Jan  1  1970 manifest.nix
    dr-xr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan  1  1970 share
    /home/eelco/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-7-link/bin:
    total 20
    lrwxrwxrwx 5 root root 79 Jan  1  1970 chromium -> /nix/store/ijm5k0zqisvkdwjkc77mb9qzb35xfi4m-chromium-86.0.4240.111/bin/chromium
    lrwxrwxrwx 7 root root 87 Jan  1  1970 spotify -> /nix/store/w9182874m1bl56smps3m5zjj36jhp3rn-spotify-1.1.26.501.gbe11e53b-15/bin/spotify
    lrwxrwxrwx 3 root root 79 Jan  1  1970 zoom-us -> /nix/store/wbhg2ga8f3h87s9h5k0slxk0m81m4cxl-zoom-us-5.3.469451.0927/bin/zoom-us
    /home/eelco/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-7-link/share/applications:
    total 12
    lrwxrwxrwx 4 root root 120 Jan  1  1970 chromium-browser.desktop -> /nix/store/4cf803y4vzfm3gyk3vzhzb2327v0kl8a-chromium-unwrapped-86.0.4240.111/share/applications/chromium-browser.desktop
    lrwxrwxrwx 7 root root 110 Jan  1  1970 spotify.desktop -> /nix/store/w9182874m1bl56smps3m5zjj36jhp3rn-spotify-1.1.26.501.gbe11e53b-15/share/applications/spotify.desktop
    lrwxrwxrwx 3 root root 107 Jan  1  1970 us.zoom.Zoom.desktop -> /nix/store/wbhg2ga8f3h87s9h5k0slxk0m81m4cxl-zoom-us-5.3.469451.0927/share/applications/us.zoom.Zoom.desktop
    …

Each profile version contains a manifest file: - manifest.nix used by nix-env. - manifest.json used by nix profile (experimental).

  User profile link

A symbolic link to the user’s current profile:

•   ~/.nix-profile

•   $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profile if use-xdg-base-directories is set to true.

By default, this symlink points to:

•   $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profiles/profile for regular users

•   $NIX_STATE_DIR/profiles/per-user/root/profile for root

The PATH environment variable should include /bin subdirectory of the profile link (e.g. ~/.nix-profile/bin) for the user environment to be visible to the user. The installer sets this up by default, unless you enable use-xdg-base-directories.

  Profile compatibility

    Warning

    Once you have used nix profile you can no longer use nix-env without first deleting $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profiles/profile

Once you installed a package with nix profile, you get the following error message when using nix-env:

    $ nix-env -f '<nixpkgs>' -iA 'hello'
    error: nix-env
    profile '/home/alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile' is incompatible with 'nix-env'; please use 'nix profile' instead

To migrate back to nix-env you can delete your current profile:

    Warning

    This will delete packages that have been installed before, so you may want to back up this information before running the command.

     $ rm -rf "${XDG_STATE_HOME-$HOME/.local/state}/nix/profiles/profile"

Options

  Logging-related options

•   --debug

    Set the logging verbosity level to ‘debug’.

•   --log-format format

    Set the format of log output; one of raw, internal-json, bar or bar-with-logs.

•   --print-build-logs / -L

    Print full build logs on standard error.

•   --quiet

    Decrease the logging verbosity level.

•   --verbose / -v

    Increase the logging verbosity level.

  Miscellaneous global options

•   --help

    Show usage information.

•   --offline

    Disable substituters and consider all previously downloaded files up-to-date.

•   --option name value

    Set the Nix configuration setting name to value (overriding nix.conf).

•   --refresh

    Consider all previously downloaded files out-of-date.

•   --version

    Show version information.

    Note

    See man nix.conf for overriding configuration settings with command line flags.