nix3-profile(1) General Commands Manual 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: o nix profile diff-closures - show the closure difference between each version of a profile o nix profile history - show all versions of a profile o nix profile install - install a package into a profile o nix profile list - list installed packages o nix profile remove - remove packages from a profile o nix profile rollback - roll back to the previous version or a specified version of a profile o nix profile upgrade - upgrade packages using their most recent flake o 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: o $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profiles for regular users o $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: o ~/.nix-profile o $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profile if use-xdg-base-directories is set to true. By default, this symlink points to: o $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profiles/profile for regular users o $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 '' -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 o --debug Set the logging verbosity level to `debug'. o --log-format format Set the format of log output; one of raw, internal-json, bar or bar-with-logs. o --print-build-logs / -L Print full build logs on standard error. o --quiet Decrease the logging verbosity level. o --verbose / -v Increase the logging verbosity level. Miscellaneous global options o --help Show usage information. o --offline Disable substituters and consider all previously downloaded files up-to-date. o --option name value Set the Nix configuration setting name to value (overriding nix.conf). o --refresh Consider all previously downloaded files out-of-date. o --version Show version information. Note See man nix.conf for overriding configuration settings with command line flags. nix3-profile(1)