386 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
386 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
Home Manager using Nix
|
|
======================
|
|
|
|
This project provides a basic system for managing a user environment
|
|
using the [Nix][] package manager together with the Nix libraries
|
|
found in [Nixpkgs][]`. It allows declarative configuration of user
|
|
specific (non global) packages and dotfiles.
|
|
|
|
Before attempting to use Home Manager please read the warning below.
|
|
|
|
For a more systematic overview of Home Manager and its available
|
|
options, please see the [Home Manager manual][manual].
|
|
|
|
Words of warning
|
|
----------------
|
|
|
|
This project is under development. I personally use it to manage
|
|
several user configurations but it may fail catastrophically for you.
|
|
So beware!
|
|
|
|
Before using Home Manager you should be comfortable using the Nix
|
|
language and the various tools in the Nix ecosystem. Reading through
|
|
the [Nix Pills][] document is a good way to familiarize yourself with
|
|
them.
|
|
|
|
In some cases Home Manager cannot detect whether it will overwrite a
|
|
previous manual configuration. For example, the Gnome Terminal module
|
|
will write to your dconf store and cannot tell whether a configuration
|
|
that it is about to be overwrite was from a previous Home Manager
|
|
generation or from manual configuration.
|
|
|
|
Home Manager targets [NixOS][] unstable and NixOS version 20.09 (the
|
|
current stable version), it may or may not work on other Linux
|
|
distributions and NixOS versions.
|
|
|
|
Also, the `home-manager` tool does not explicitly support rollbacks at
|
|
the moment so if your home directory gets messed up you'll have to fix
|
|
it yourself. See the [rollbacks](#rollbacks) section for instructions
|
|
on how to manually perform a rollback.
|
|
|
|
Now when your expectations have been built up and you are eager to try
|
|
all this out you can go ahead and read the rest of this text.
|
|
|
|
Contact
|
|
-------
|
|
|
|
You can chat with us on IRC in the channel [#home-manager][] on
|
|
[freenode][]. The [channel logs][] are hosted courtesy of
|
|
[samueldr][].
|
|
|
|
Installation
|
|
------------
|
|
|
|
Currently the easiest way to install Home Manager is as follows:
|
|
|
|
1. Make sure you have a working Nix installation. Specifically, make
|
|
sure that your user is able to build and install Nix packages. For
|
|
example, you should be able to successfully run a command like
|
|
`nix-instantiate '<nixpkgs>' -A hello` without having to switch to
|
|
the root user. For a multi-user install of Nix this means that
|
|
your user must be covered by the
|
|
[`allowed-users`][nixAllowedUsers] Nix option. On NixOS you can
|
|
control this option using the
|
|
[`nix.allowedUsers`][nixosAllowedUsers] system option.
|
|
|
|
Note that Nix 2.4 (`nixUnstable`) is not yet supported.
|
|
|
|
2. Add the appropriate Home Manager channel. If you are following
|
|
Nixpkgs master or an unstable channel you can run
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ nix-channel --add https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/archive/master.tar.gz home-manager
|
|
$ nix-channel --update
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
and if you follow a Nixpkgs version 20.09 channel you can run
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ nix-channel --add https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/archive/release-20.09.tar.gz home-manager
|
|
$ nix-channel --update
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
On NixOS you may need to log out and back in for the channel to
|
|
become available. On non-NixOS you may have to add
|
|
|
|
```shell
|
|
export NIX_PATH=$HOME/.nix-defexpr/channels${NIX_PATH:+:}$NIX_PATH
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
to your shell (see [nix#2033](https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/2033)).
|
|
|
|
3. Install Home Manager and create the first Home Manager generation:
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ nix-shell '<home-manager>' -A install
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Once finished, Home Manager should be active and available in your
|
|
user environment.
|
|
|
|
3. If you do not plan on having Home Manager manage your shell
|
|
configuration then you must source the
|
|
|
|
```
|
|
$HOME/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/hm-session-vars.sh
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
file in your shell configuration. Unfortunately, in this specific
|
|
case we currently only support POSIX.2-like shells such as
|
|
[Bash][] or [Z shell][].
|
|
|
|
For example, if you use Bash then add
|
|
|
|
```bash
|
|
. "$HOME/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/hm-session-vars.sh"
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
or this when managing home configuration together with system
|
|
configuration
|
|
|
|
```bash
|
|
. "/etc/profiles/per-user/$USER/etc/profile.d/hm-session-vars.sh"
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
to your `~/.profile` file.
|
|
|
|
If instead of using channels you want to run Home Manager from a Git
|
|
checkout of the repository then you can use the
|
|
`programs.home-manager.path` option to specify the absolute path to
|
|
the repository.
|
|
|
|
Usage
|
|
-----
|
|
|
|
Home Manager is typically managed through the `home-manager` tool.
|
|
This tool can, for example, apply configurations to your home
|
|
directory, list user packages installed by the tool, and list the
|
|
configuration generations.
|
|
|
|
As an example, let us expand the initial configuration file from the
|
|
installation above to install the htop and fortune packages, install
|
|
Emacs with a few extra packages enabled, install Firefox with
|
|
smooth scrolling enabled, and enable the user gpg-agent service.
|
|
|
|
To satisfy the above setup we should elaborate the
|
|
`~/.config/nixpkgs/home.nix` file as follows:
|
|
|
|
```nix
|
|
{ pkgs, ... }:
|
|
|
|
{
|
|
home.packages = [
|
|
pkgs.htop
|
|
pkgs.fortune
|
|
];
|
|
|
|
programs.emacs = {
|
|
enable = true;
|
|
extraPackages = epkgs: [
|
|
epkgs.nix-mode
|
|
epkgs.magit
|
|
];
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
programs.firefox = {
|
|
enable = true;
|
|
profiles = {
|
|
myprofile = {
|
|
settings = {
|
|
"general.smoothScroll" = false;
|
|
};
|
|
};
|
|
};
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
services.gpg-agent = {
|
|
enable = true;
|
|
defaultCacheTtl = 1800;
|
|
enableSshSupport = true;
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
programs.home-manager = {
|
|
enable = true;
|
|
path = "…";
|
|
};
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
To activate this configuration you can then run
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ home-manager switch
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
or if you are not feeling so lucky,
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ home-manager build
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
which will create a `result` link to a directory containing an
|
|
activation script and the generated home directory files.
|
|
|
|
Documentation of available configuration options, including
|
|
descriptions and usage examples, is available in the [Home Manager
|
|
manual][configuration options] or offline by running
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ man home-configuration.nix
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Rollbacks
|
|
---------
|
|
|
|
While the `home-manager` tool does not explicitly support rollbacks at
|
|
the moment it is relatively easy to perform one manually. The steps to
|
|
do so are
|
|
|
|
1. Run `home-manager generations` to determine which generation you
|
|
wish to rollback to:
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ home-manager generations
|
|
2018-01-04 11:56 : id 765 -> /nix/store/kahm1rxk77mnvd2l8pfvd4jkkffk5ijk-home-manager-generation
|
|
2018-01-03 10:29 : id 764 -> /nix/store/2wsmsliqr5yynqkdyjzb1y57pr5q2lsj-home-manager-generation
|
|
2018-01-01 12:21 : id 763 -> /nix/store/mv960kl9chn2lal5q8lnqdp1ygxngcd1-home-manager-generation
|
|
2017-12-29 21:03 : id 762 -> /nix/store/6c0k1r03fxckql4vgqcn9ccb616ynb94-home-manager-generation
|
|
2017-12-25 18:51 : id 761 -> /nix/store/czc5y6vi1rvnkfv83cs3rn84jarcgsgh-home-manager-generation
|
|
…
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
2. Copy the Nix store path of the generation you chose, e.g.,
|
|
|
|
/nix/store/mv960kl9chn2lal5q8lnqdp1ygxngcd1-home-manager-generation
|
|
|
|
for generation 763.
|
|
|
|
3. Run the `activate` script inside the copied store path:
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ /nix/store/mv960kl9chn2lal5q8lnqdp1ygxngcd1-home-manager-generation/activate
|
|
Starting home manager activation
|
|
…
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Keeping your ~ safe from harm
|
|
-----------------------------
|
|
|
|
To configure programs and services Home Manager must write various
|
|
things to your home directory. To prevent overwriting any existing
|
|
files when switching to a new generation, Home Manager will attempt to
|
|
detect collisions between existing files and generated files. If any
|
|
such collision is detected the activation will terminate before
|
|
changing anything on your computer.
|
|
|
|
For example, suppose you have a wonderful, painstakingly created
|
|
`~/.config/git/config` and add
|
|
|
|
```nix
|
|
{
|
|
# …
|
|
|
|
programs.git = {
|
|
enable = true;
|
|
userName = "Jane Doe";
|
|
userEmail = "jane.doe@example.org";
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
# …
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
to your configuration. Attempting to switch to the generation will
|
|
then result in
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ home-manager switch
|
|
…
|
|
Activating checkLinkTargets
|
|
Existing file '/home/jdoe/.gitconfig' is in the way
|
|
Please move the above files and try again
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Graphical services
|
|
------------------
|
|
|
|
Home Manager includes a number of services intended to run in a
|
|
graphical session, for example `xscreensaver` and `dunst`.
|
|
Unfortunately, such services will not be started automatically unless
|
|
you let Home Manager start your X session. That is, you have something
|
|
like
|
|
|
|
```nix
|
|
{
|
|
# …
|
|
|
|
services.xserver.enable = true;
|
|
|
|
# …
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
in your system configuration and
|
|
|
|
```nix
|
|
{
|
|
# …
|
|
|
|
xsession.enable = true;
|
|
xsession.windowManager.command = "…";
|
|
|
|
# …
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
in your Home Manager configuration.
|
|
|
|
Nix Flakes
|
|
----------
|
|
|
|
Home Manager includes a `flake.nix` file for compatibility with [Nix Flakes][]
|
|
for those that wish to use it as a module. A bare-minimum `flake.nix` would be
|
|
as follows:
|
|
|
|
```nix
|
|
{
|
|
description = "NixOS configuration";
|
|
|
|
inputs = {
|
|
nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
|
|
home-manager.url = "github:nix-community/home-manager";
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
outputs = { home-manager, nixpkgs, ... }: {
|
|
nixosConfigurations = {
|
|
hostname = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
|
|
system = "x86_64-linux";
|
|
modules = [
|
|
./configuration.nix
|
|
home-manager.nixosModules.home-manager
|
|
{
|
|
home-manager.useGlobalPkgs = true;
|
|
home-manager.useUserPackages = true;
|
|
home-manager.users.jdoe = import ./home.nix;
|
|
}
|
|
];
|
|
};
|
|
};
|
|
};
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Note, the Home Manager library is exported by the flake under
|
|
`lib.hm`.
|
|
|
|
When using flakes, switch to new configurations as you do for the
|
|
whole system (e. g. `nixos-rebuild switch --flake <path>`) instead of
|
|
using the `home-manager` command line tool.
|
|
|
|
Releases
|
|
--------
|
|
|
|
Home Manager is developed against `nixpkgs-unstable` branch, which
|
|
often causes it to contain tweaks for changes/packages not yet
|
|
released in stable NixOS. To avoid breaking users' configurations,
|
|
Home Manager is released in branches corresponding to NixOS releases
|
|
(e.g. `release-20.09`). These branches get fixes, but usually not new
|
|
modules. If you need a module to be backported, then feel free to open
|
|
an issue.
|
|
|
|
[Bash]: https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/
|
|
[Nix]: https://nixos.org/nix/
|
|
[NixOS]: https://nixos.org/
|
|
[Nixpkgs]: https://nixos.org/nixpkgs/
|
|
[nixAllowedUsers]: https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#conf-allowed-users
|
|
[nixosAllowedUsers]: https://nixos.org/nixos/manual/options.html#opt-nix.allowedUsers
|
|
[Z shell]: http://zsh.sourceforge.net/
|
|
[manual]: https://nix-community.github.io/home-manager/
|
|
[configuration options]: https://nix-community.github.io/home-manager/options.html
|
|
[#home-manager]: https://webchat.freenode.net/?url=irc%3A%2F%2Firc.freenode.net%2Fhome-manager
|
|
[freenode]: https://freenode.net/
|
|
[channel logs]: https://logs.nix.samueldr.com/home-manager/
|
|
[samueldr]: https://github.com/samueldr/
|
|
[Nix Pills]: https://nixos.org/nixos/nix-pills/
|
|
[Nix Flakes]: https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Flakes
|