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nix-darwin

nix modules for darwin

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nix-darwin

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Nix modules for darwin, /etc/nixos/configuration.nix for macOS.

This project aims to bring the convenience of a declarative system approach to macOS. nix-darwin is built up around Nixpkgs, quite similar to NixOS.

Prerequisites

The only prerequisite is a Nix implementation, both Nix and Lix are supported.

As the official Nix installer does not include an automated uninstaller, and manual uninstallation on macOS is a complex process, we recommend using one of the following installers instead:

Getting started

Despite being an experimental feature in Nix currently, nix-darwin recommends that beginners use flakes to manage their nix-darwin configurations.

Flakes (Recommended for beginners) ### Step 1. Creating `flake.nix`
Getting started from scratch

If you don't have an existing `configuration.nix`, you can run the following commands to generate a basic `flake.nix` inside `~/.config/nix-darwin`: ```bash mkdir -p ~/.config/nix-darwin cd ~/.config/nix-darwin nix flake init -t nix-darwin sed -i '' "s/simple/$(scutil --get LocalHostName)/" flake.nix ``` Make sure to change `nixpkgs.hostPlatform` to `aarch64-darwin` if you are using Apple Silicon.
Migrating from an existing configuration.nix

Add the following to `flake.nix` in the same folder as `configuration.nix`: ```nix { description = "John's darwin system"; inputs = { nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-24.05-darwin"; nix-darwin.url = "github:LnL7/nix-darwin"; nix-darwin.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs"; }; outputs = inputs@{ self, nix-darwin, nixpkgs }: { darwinConfigurations."Johns-MacBook" = nix-darwin.lib.darwinSystem { modules = [ ./configuration.nix ]; }; }; } ``` Make sure to replace `Johns-MacBook` with your hostname which you can find by running `scutil --get LocalHostName`. Make sure to set `nixpkgs.hostPlatform` in your `configuration.nix` to either `x86_64-darwin` (Intel) or `aarch64-darwin` (Apple Silicon).
### Step 2. Installing `nix-darwin` Unlike NixOS, `nix-darwin` does not have an installer, you can just run `darwin-rebuild switch` to install nix-darwin. As `darwin-rebuild` won't be installed in your `PATH` yet, you can use the following command: ```bash nix run nix-darwin -- switch --flake ~/.config/nix-darwin ``` ### Step 3. Using `nix-darwin` After installing, you can run `darwin-rebuild` to apply changes to your system: ```bash darwin-rebuild switch --flake ~/.config/nix-darwin ``` #### Using flake inputs Inputs from the flake can also be passed into `darwinSystem`. These inputs are then accessible as an argument `inputs`, similar to `pkgs` and `lib`, inside the configuration. ```nix # in flake.nix nix-darwin.lib.darwinSystem { modules = [ ./configuration.nix ]; specialArgs = { inherit inputs; }; } ``` ```nix # in configuration.nix { pkgs, lib, inputs }: # inputs.self, inputs.nix-darwin, and inputs.nixpkgs can be accessed here ```
Channels ### Step 1. Creating `configuration.nix` Copy the [simple](./modules/examples/simple.nix) example to `~/.config/nix-darwin/configuration.nix`. ### Step 2. Adding `nix-darwin` channel ```bash nix-channel --add https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin/archive/master.tar.gz darwin nix-channel --update ``` ### Step 3. Installing `nix-darwin` To install `nix-darwin`, you can just run `darwin-rebuild switch` to install nix-darwin. As `darwin-rebuild` won't be installed in your `PATH` yet, you can use the following command: ```bash nix-build https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin/archive/master.tar.gz -A darwin-rebuild ./result/bin/darwin-rebuild switch -I darwin-config=$HOME/.config/nix-darwin/configuration.nix ``` ### Step 4. Using `nix-darwin` After installing, you can run `darwin-rebuild` to apply changes to your system: ```bash darwin-rebuild switch ``` ### Step 5. Updating `nix-darwin` You can update `nix-darwin` using the following command: ```bash nix-channel --update darwin ```

Documentation

darwin-help will open up a local copy of the reference documentation, it can also be found online here.

The documentation is also available as manpages by running man 5 configuration.nix.

Uninstalling

To run the latest version of the uninstaller, you can run the following command:

nix --extra-experimental-features "nix-command flakes" run nix-darwin#darwin-uninstaller

If that command doesn’t work for you, you can try the locally installed uninstaller:

darwin-uninstaller

Tests

There are basic tests that run sanity checks for some of the modules, you can run them like this:

# run all tests
nix-build release.nix -A tests
# or just a subset
nix-build release.nix -A tests.environment-path

Contributing

Let’s make Nix on macOS awesome!

Don’t hesitate to contribute modules or open an issue.

To build your configuration with local changes you can run this. This flag can also be used to override darwin-config or nixpkgs, for more information on the -I flag look at the nix-build manpage.

darwin-rebuild switch -I darwin=.

If you’re adding a module, please add yourself to meta.maintainers, for example

  meta.maintainers = [
    lib.maintainers.alice or "alice"
  ];

  options.services.alicebot = # ...

The or operator takes care of graceful degradation when lib from Nixpkgs goes out of sync.

Also feel free to contact me if you have questions,