nix3-profile(1)

Usage

nix profile [option…] subcommand

where subcommand is one of the following:

Warning
This program is experimental ⟨@docroot@/development/experimental-features.md#xp-feature-nix-command⟩ and its interface is subject to change.

Overview

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 ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/nix-env.md⟩ and nix profile ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/new-cli/nix3-profile.md⟩\c :

•: $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 ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/files/manifest.nix.md⟩ used by nix-env ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/nix-env.md⟩\c . - manifest.json ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/files/manifest.json.md⟩ used by nix profile ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/new-cli/nix3-profile.md⟩ (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 ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/conf-file.md#conf-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 ⟨@docroot@/installation/installing-binary.md⟩ sets this up by default, unless you enable use-xdg-base-directories ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/conf-file.md#conf-use-xdg-base-directories⟩\c .

Profile compatibility

Warning

Once you have used nix profile ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/new-cli/nix3-profile.md⟩ you can no longer use nix-env ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/nix-env.md⟩ without first deleting $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profiles/profile

Once you installed a package with nix profile ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/new-cli/nix3-profile.md⟩\c , you get the following error message when using nix-env ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/nix-env.md⟩\c :

$ 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` ⟨#opt-debug⟩
	Set the logging verbosity level to ‘debug’.
`•`	`--log-format` ⟨#opt-log-format⟩ format
	Set the format of log output; one of `raw`, `internal-json`, `bar` or `bar-with-logs`.
`•`	`--print-build-logs` ⟨#opt-print-build-logs⟩ / `-L`
	Print full build logs on standard error.
`•`	`--quiet` ⟨#opt-quiet⟩
	Decrease the logging verbosity level.
`•`	`--verbose` ⟨#opt-verbose⟩ / `-v`
	Increase the logging verbosity level.

Miscellaneous global options

•: --help ⟨#opt-help⟩

: Show usage information.

•: --offline ⟨#opt-offline⟩

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

•: --option ⟨#opt-option⟩ name value

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

•: --refresh ⟨#opt-refresh⟩

: Consider all previously downloaded files out-of-date.

•: --version ⟨#opt-version⟩

: Show version information.

Note

See man nix.conf ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/conf-file.md#command-line-flags⟩ for overriding configuration settings with command line flags.

Releases

2 releases since Debian 12 (Bookworm); the text changed 1 time.

12
13