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.
To install nix-darwin, a working installation of Nix is required.
NOTE: Using
darwin-installer
is no longer necessary on flake based systems.
nix-build https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin/archive/master.tar.gz -A installer
./result/bin/darwin-installer
NOTE: the system activation scripts don't overwrite existing etc files, so files like
/etc/bashrc
and/etc/zshrc
won't be updated by default. If you didn't use the installer or skipped some of the options you'll have to take care of this yourself. Either modify the existing file to source/import the one from/etc/static
or remove it. Some examples:
mv /etc/bashrc /etc/bashrc.before-nix-darwin
echo 'if test -e /etc/static/bashrc; then . /etc/static/bashrc; fi' | sudo tee -a /etc/bashrc
The installer will configure a channel for this repository.
nix-channel --update darwin
darwin-rebuild changelog
NOTE: If you are using Nix as a daemon service the channel for that will be owned by root. Use
sudo -i nix-channel --update darwin
instead.
There's also an uninstaller if you don't like the project and want to remove the configured files and services.
nix-build https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin/archive/master.tar.gz -A uninstaller
./result/bin/darwin-uninstaller
Configuration lives in ~/.nixpkgs/darwin-configuration.nix
. Check out
modules/examples for some example configurations.
{ pkgs, ... }:
{
# List packages installed in system profile. To search by name, run:
# $ nix-env -qaP | grep wget
environment.systemPackages =
[ pkgs.vim
];
# Auto upgrade nix package and the daemon service.
services.nix-daemon.enable = true;
nix.package = pkgs.nix;
}
There is also preliminary support for building your configuration using a flake. This is mostly based on the flake support that was added to NixOS.
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
:
mkdir -p ~/.config/nix-darwin
cd ~/.config/nix-darwin
nix flake init -t nix-darwin
Make sure to replace all occurrences of simple
with your short hostname which you can find by running hostname -s
.
NOTE: Make sure to change
nixpkgs.hostPlatform
toaarch64-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
:
{
description = "John's darwin system";
inputs = {
nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-23.05-darwin";
darwin.url = "github:LnL7/nix-darwin/master";
darwin.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
};
outputs = inputs@{ self, darwin, nixpkgs }: {
darwinConfigurations."Johns-MacBook" = darwin.lib.darwinSystem {
modules = [ ./configuration.nix ];
};
};
}
Make sure to replace Johns-MacBook
with your short hostname which you can find by running hostname -s
.
NOTE: Make sure to set
nixpkgs.hostPlatform
in yourconfiguration.nix
to eitherx86_64-darwin
(Intel) oraarch64-darwin
(Apple Silicon).
Instead of using darwin-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:
nix run nix-darwin -- switch --flake ~/.config/nix-darwin
After installing, you can run darwin-rebuild
to apply changes to your system:
darwin-rebuild switch --flake ~/.config/nix-darwin
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.
# in flake.nix
darwin.lib.darwinSystem {
modules = [ ./configuration.nix ];
specialArgs = { inherit inputs; };
}
# in configuration.nix
{ pkgs, lib, inputs }:
# inputs.self, inputs.darwin, and inputs.nixpkgs can be accessed here
# Configure the channel
nix-channel --add https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin/archive/master.tar.gz darwin
nix-channel --update
export NIX_PATH=darwin-config=$HOME/.nixpkgs/darwin-configuration.nix:$HOME/.nix-defexpr/channels:$NIX_PATH
# Or use a local git repository
git clone [email protected]:LnL7/nix-darwin.git ~/.nix-defexpr/darwin
export NIX_PATH=darwin=$HOME/.nix-defexpr/darwin:darwin-config=$HOME/.nixpkgs/darwin-configuration.nix:$NIX_PATH
cp ~/.nix-defexpr/darwin/modules/examples/simple.nix ~/.nixpkgs/darwin-configuration.nix
# you can also use this to rebootstrap nix-darwin in case
# darwin-rebuild is to old to activate the system.
$(nix-build '<darwin>' -A system --no-out-link)/sw/bin/darwin-rebuild build
$(nix-build '<darwin>' -A system --no-out-link)/sw/bin/darwin-rebuild switch
. /etc/static/bashrc
... or for fish
:
(nix-build '<darwin>' -A system --no-out-link)/sw/bin/darwin-rebuild build
(nix-build '<darwin>' -A system --no-out-link)/sw/bin/darwin-rebuild switch
This will create and manage a system profile in /run/current-system
, just like NixOS.
By default, nix-darwin will look in your NIX_PATH
for this repository at ~/.nix-defexpr/darwin
and your configuration at ~/.nixpkgs/darwin-configuration.nix
.
If you want to change these you can set your own with nix.nixPath = [ ];
.
$ darwin-rebuild switch
building the system configuration...
these derivations will be built:
/nix/store/vfad6xgjzr56jcs051cg6vzch4dby92y-etc-zprofile.drv
/nix/store/cbmkscxsz0k02ynaph5xaxm1aql0p3vq-etc.drv
/nix/store/r5fpn177jhc16f8iyzk12gcw4pivzpbw-nixdarwin-system-16.09.drv
building path(s) ‘/nix/store/wlq89shja597ip7mrmjv7yzk2lwyh8n0-etc-zprofile’
building path(s) ‘/nix/store/m8kcm1pa5j570h3indp71a439wsh9lzq-etc’
building path(s) ‘/nix/store/l735ffcdvcvy60i8pqf6v00vx7lnm6mz-nixdarwin-system-16.09’
setting up /etc...
setting up launchd services...
writing defaults...
$
Reference documentation of all the options is available here.
This can also be accessed locally using man 5 configuration.nix
.
darwin-help
will open a HTML version of the manpage in the default browser.
Furthermore there's darwin-option
to introspect the settings of a system and its available options.
NOTE:
darwin-option
is only available to non-flake installations.
$ darwin-option services.activate-system.enable
Value:
true
Default:
false
Example:
no example
Description:
Whether to activate system at boot time.
There's also a small wiki https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin/wiki about specific topics, like macOS upgrades.
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
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,
- Matrix - @daiderd:matrix.org, you can find me in #macos:nixos.org
- @LnL7 on twitter