Eelco Dolstra
836573a9a2
Rather than rely on a nixbld group, we now allocate UIDs/GIDs dynamically starting at a configurable ID (872415232 by default). Also, we allocate 2^18 UIDs and GIDs per build, and run the build as root in its UID namespace. (This should not be the default since it breaks some builds. We probably should enable this conditional on a requiredSystemFeature.) The goal is to be able to run (NixOS) containers in a build. However, this will also require some cgroup initialisation. The 2^18 UIDs/GIDs is intended to provide enough ID space to run multiple containers per build, e.g. for distributed NixOS tests.
Nix
Nix is a powerful package manager for Linux and other Unix systems that makes package management reliable and reproducible. Please refer to the Nix manual for more details.
Installation
On Linux and macOS the easiest way to Install Nix is to run the following shell command (as a user other than root):
$ curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
Information on additional installation methods is available on the Nix download page.
Building And Developing
Building Nix
You can build Nix using one of the targets provided by release.nix:
$ nix-build ./release.nix -A build.aarch64-linux
$ nix-build ./release.nix -A build.x86_64-darwin
$ nix-build ./release.nix -A build.i686-linux
$ nix-build ./release.nix -A build.x86_64-linux
Development Environment
You can use the provided shell.nix to get a working development environment:
$ nix-shell
$ ./bootstrap.sh
$ ./configure
$ make
Additional Resources
License
Nix is released under the LGPL v2.1.