• Stars
    star
    645
  • Rank 69,767 (Top 2 %)
  • Language
    Nix
  • License
    MIT License
  • Created over 8 years ago
  • Updated 19 days ago

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Be the first to send feedback to the community and the maintainers!

Repository Details

Bundle Nix derivations to run anywhere!

nix-bundle

nix-bundle is a way to package Nix attributes into single-file executables.

Benefits

  • Single-file output
  • Can be run by non-root users
  • No runtime
  • Distro agnostic
  • No installation

Getting started

Make sure you have installed Nix already. See http://nixos.org/nix/ for more details.

Once you have a working Nix install, you can run:

$ ./nix-bundle.sh hello /bin/hello

hello indicates the Nix derivation from NixPkgs that you want to use, while /bin/hello indicates the path of the executable relative to hello that you want to run. This will create the file "hello". Running it:

$ ./hello
Hello, world!

This is a standalone file that is completely portable! As long as you are running the same architecture Linux kernel and have a shell interpreter available it will run.

Some others to try:

./nix-bundle.sh nano /bin/nano
./nix-bundle.sh emacs /bin/emacs

Or if you want to try graphical applications:

# Simple X game. Very few dependencies. Quick to build and load. ~13MB
./nix-bundle.sh xskat /bin/xskat
./nix-bundle.sh firefox /bin/firefox
# SDL-based game. ~228MB
./nix-bundle.sh ivan /bin/ivan

Self-bundling (meta)

Starting with v0.1.3, you can bundle nix-bundle! To do this, just use nix-bundle normally:

NIX_PATH="nixpkgs=https://github.com/matthewbauer/nixpkgs/archive/nix-bundle.tar.gz" ./nix-bundle.sh nix-bundle /bin/nix-bundle

[Experimental] Create AppImage executables from Nix expressions

"nix-bundle.sh" tends to create fairly large outputs. This is largely because nix-bundle.sh "extracts" its payload up front. AppImage uses a different method where extraction only takes place when the file is accessed (through FUSE and SquashFS). You can now create a compliant "AppImage" using the "nix2appimage.sh" script:

./nix2appimage.sh emacs

This will create a file at Emacs-x86_64.AppImage which you can execute.

Notice that there is only one argument for nix2appimage.sh. This is because the target executable will be detected from the .desktop file in /share/applications/*.desktop. As a side-effect, AppImage requires your package to have a .desktop file, so packages like "hello", "coreutils", etc. will not work.

Some other examples to try:

./nix2appimage.sh firefox
./nix2appimage.sh vlc
./nix2appimage.sh 0ad
./nix2appimage.sh wireshark-gtk

These may take a while because of the large closure size.

Note that these do not currently work out of the box with NixOS. Other Linux distros should work.

Comparison with AppImage, FlatPak, Snappy

Name Distro-agnostic Runtime required Root required Storage
nix-bundle yes no no Arx tarball
AppImage yes no no Squashfs w/ lzma compression
FlatPak yes yes no ?
Snappy yes yes no squashFS

How it works

Nix-bundle glues together four different projects to work correctly:

  • Arx - an archive execution tool
  • Creates single-file archive executable that can unpack themselves and then run some command. nix-bundle calls nix-user-chroot to bootstrap the Nix environment. It outputs a "./nix" folder.
  • nix-user-chroot - a small bootstrap that uses Linux namespaces to call chroot
    • This will create sub namespace and bind mount the "./nix" to "/nix" so that the Nix references function properly.
  • Nix - a functional package manager
    • Used to build runtime closures that are self-contained.
  • nixpkgs
    • Provides lots of different packages to choose from.

Drawbacks

Nix-bundle has some drawbacks that need to be worked on:

  • Slow startup
  • Large files (Firefox 150MB)
  • Only compatible Linux
  • Outputs built on x86-64 will not run on i386
  • Requires Linux kernel with CAP_SYS_USER_NS on and permissions setup correctly

More Repositories

1

home-manager

Manage a user environment using Nix [maintainer=@rycee]
Nix
6,972
star
2

awesome-nix

😎 A curated list of the best resources in the Nix community [maintainer=@cyntheticfox]
3,300
star
3

nixvim

Configure Neovim with Nix! [maintainer=@GaetanLepage, @traxys, @mattsturgeon, @khaneliman]
Nix
1,579
star
4

nixos-anywhere

install nixos everywhere via ssh [maintainer=@numtide]
Shell
1,574
star
5

disko

Declarative disk partitioning and formatting using nix [maintainer=@Lassulus]
Nix
1,487
star
6

nixos-generators

Collection of image builders [maintainer=@Lassulus]
Nix
1,338
star
7

nix-on-droid

Nix-enabled environment for your Android device. [maintainers=@t184256,@Gerschtli]
Nix
1,281
star
8

NixOS-WSL

NixOS on WSL(2) [maintainer=@nzbr]
Nix
1,236
star
9

nix-direnv

A fast, persistent use_nix/use_flake implementation for direnv [maintainer=@Mic92 / @bbenne10]
Nix
1,170
star
10

impermanence

Modules to help you handle persistent state on systems with ephemeral root storage [maintainer=@talyz]
Nix
1,134
star
11

dream2nix

Simplified nix packaging for various programming language ecosystems [maintainer=@DavHau]
Nix
976
star
12

NUR

Nix User Repository: User contributed nix packages [maintainer=@Mic92]
Python
882
star
13

nix-init

Generate Nix packages from URLs with hash prefetching, dependency inference, license detection, and more [maintainer=@figsoda]
Rust
844
star
14

nixd

Nix language server, based on nix libraries [maintainer=@inclyc,@Aleksanaa]
C++
842
star
15

comma

Comma runs software without installing it. [maintainers=@Artturin,@burke,@DavHau]
Rust
831
star
16

nix-index

Quickly locate nix packages with specific files [maintainers=@bennofs @figsoda @raitobezarius]
Rust
817
star
17

poetry2nix

Convert poetry projects to nix automagically [maintainer=@adisbladis,@cpcloud]
Nix
812
star
18

lanzaboote

Secure Boot for NixOS [maintainers=@blitz @raitobezarius @nikstur]
Rust
798
star
19

naersk

Build Rust projects in Nix - no configuration, no code generation, no IFD, sandbox friendly.
Nix
730
star
20

rnix-lsp

WIP Language Server for Nix! [maintainer=@aaronjanse]
Rust
702
star
21

lorri

Your project’s nix-env [maintainer=@Profpatsch,@nyarly]
Rust
659
star
22

fenix

Rust toolchains and rust-analyzer nightly for Nix [maintainer=@figsoda]
Nix
651
star
23

nixGL

A wrapper tool for nix OpenGL application [maintainer=@guibou]
Nix
650
star
24

robotnix

Build Android (AOSP) using Nix [maintainer=@danielfullmer,@Atemu]
Nix
612
star
25

plasma-manager

Manage KDE Plasma with Home Manager
Nix
575
star
26

nixpkgs-wayland

Automated, pre-built packages for Wayland (sway/wlroots) tools for NixOS. [maintainers=@colemickens, @Artturin]
Nix
511
star
27

nixpkgs-fmt

Nix code formatter for nixpkgs [maintainer=@zimbatm]
Rust
503
star
28

emacs-overlay

Bleeding edge emacs overlay [maintainer=@adisbladis]
Nix
484
star
29

nurl

Generate Nix fetcher calls from repository URLs [maintainer=@figsoda]
Rust
451
star
30

vulnix

Vulnerability (CVE) scanner for Nix/NixOS.
Python
447
star
31

nixpkgs-update

Updating nixpkgs packages since 2018
Haskell
415
star
32

nixos-vscode-server

Visual Studio Code Server support in NixOS
Nix
377
star
33

crate2nix

rebuild only changed crates in CI with crate2nix and nix
Nix
354
star
34

rnix-parser

A Nix parser written in Rust [maintainer=@oberblastmeister]
Nix
353
star
35

terraform-nixos

A set of Terraform modules that are designed to deploy NixOS [maintainer=@adrian-gierakowski]
HCL
328
star
36

neovim-nightly-overlay

[maintainer=@GaetanLepage, @willruggiano]
Nix
315
star
37

srvos

NixOS profiles for servers [maintainer=@numtide]
Nix
297
star
38

haumea

Filesystem-based module system for Nix [maintainer=@figsoda]
Nix
286
star
39

trustix

Trustix: Distributed trust and reproducibility tracking for binary caches [maintainer=@adisbladis]
Go
284
star
40

nixbox

NixOS Vagrant boxes [maintainer=@zimbatm]
HCL
276
star
41

vscode-nix-ide

Nix language support for VSCode editor [maintainer: @jnoortheen]
TypeScript
260
star
42

NixNG

A linux distribution based on Nix [maintainer=@MagicRB]
Nix
256
star
43

nix-user-chroot

Install & Run nix without root permissions [maintainer=@Mic92]
Rust
243
star
44

nix-index-database

Weekly updated nix-index database [maintainer=@Mic92]
Nix
237
star
45

dconf2nix

🐾 Convert dconf files (e.g. GNOME Shell) to Nix, as expected by Home Manager [maintainer=@jtojnar]
Nix
228
star
46

nix-emacs

A set of useful Emacs modes and functions for users of Nix and Nix OS.
Emacs Lisp
226
star
47

nix-zsh-completions

ZSH Completions for Nix
Shell
225
star
48

nix-melt

A ranger-like flake.lock viewer [maintainer=@figsoda]
Rust
219
star
49

gomod2nix

Convert applications using Go modules to Nix expressions [maintainer=@adisbladis]
Nix
216
star
50

kickstart-nix.nvim

❄️ A dead simple Nix flake template repository for Neovim derivations [maintainer=@mrcjkb]
Lua
194
star
51

noogle

https://noogle.dev - nix function exploring. [maintainer=@hsjobeki]
Nix
194
star
52

pypi2nix

Abandoned! Generate Nix expressions for Python packages
Python
189
star
53

pip2nix

Freeze pip-installable packages into Nix expressions [maintainer=@datakurre]
Python
171
star
54

todomvc-nix

Example on how to nixify a project [maintainer=@Rizary]
Nix
169
star
55

flakelight

Framework for simplifying flake setup [maintainer=@accelbread]
Nix
159
star
56

tree-sitter-nix

Nix grammar for tree-sitter [maintainer=@cstrahan]
JavaScript
158
star
57

nix-environments

Repository to maintain out-of-tree shell.nix files (maintainer=@mic92)
Nix
156
star
58

nix-eval-jobs

Parallel nix evaluator with a streamable json output [maintainers @Mic92, @adisbladis]
C++
140
star
59

docker-nixpkgs

docker images from nixpkgs [maintainer=@zimbatm]
Nix
137
star
60

nix-ld-rs

Run unpatched dynamic binaries on NixOS [maintainer=@zhaofengli @Mic92]
Rust
137
star
61

linuxkit-nix

An easy to use Linux builder for macOS [maintainer=@nicknovitski]
Nix
133
star
62

nix-vscode-extensions

Nix expressions for VSCode and OpenVSX extensions [maintainers: @deemp, @AmeerTaweel]
Haskell
132
star
63

npmlock2nix

nixify npm based packages [maintainer=@andir]
Nix
130
star
64

nixos-install-scripts

collection of one-shot scripts to install NixOS on various server hosters and other hardware. [maintainer=@happysalada]
Shell
127
star
65

nixago

Generate configuration files using Nix [maintainer=@jmgilman]
Nix
125
star
66

nixdoc

Tool to generate documentation for Nix library functions [maintainer=@infinisil]
Nix
124
star
67

yarn2nix

Generate nix expressions from a yarn.lock file [maintainer=???]
Nix
123
star
68

nixpkgs-lint

A fast semantic linter for Nix using tree-sitter 🌳 + ❄️. [maintainers=@Artturin,@siraben]
Rust
120
star
69

dns.nix

A Nix DSL for DNS zone files [maintainers=@raitobezarius @kirelagin @Tom-Hubrecht]
Nix
116
star
70

namaka

Snapshot testing for Nix based on haumea [maintainer=@figsoda]
Rust
106
star
71

nix-unstable-installer

A place to host Nix unstable releases [maintainer=@lilyinstarlight]
Ruby
105
star
72

go-nix

Elements of Nix re-implemented as Go libraries [maintainer=@flokli]
Go
102
star
73

wiki

Nixos wiki [maintainer=@samueldr]
102
star
74

pyproject.nix

A collection of Nix utilities to work with Python projects [maintainer=@adisbladis]
Nix
101
star
75

nur-combined

A repository of NUR that combines all repositories [maintainer=@Mic92]
Nix
92
star
76

napalm

Support for building npm packages in Nix and lightweight npm registry [maintainer @jtojnar]
Nix
91
star
77

nixos-images

Automatically build (netboot) images for NixOS [maintainer=@Mic92]
Nix
90
star
78

vgo2nix

Convert go.mod files to nixpkgs buildGoPackage compatible deps.nix files [maintainer=@adisbladis]
Nix
89
star
79

nixt

Simple unit-testing for Nix [maintainer=@Lord-Valen]
TypeScript
87
star
80

nur-packages-template

A template for NUR repositories: [maintainer=@fgaz]
Nix
84
star
81

pnpm2nix

Load pnpm lock files into nix :) [maintainer=@adisbladis]
Nix
81
star
82

mineflake

Declarative Minecraft server in NixOS [unmaintained]
Rust
75
star
83

nix-github-actions

A library to turn Nix Flake attribute sets into Github Actions matrices [maintainer=@adisbladis]
Nix
75
star
84

buildbot-nix

A nixos module to make buildbot a proper Nix-CI [maintainer=@Mic92]
Python
74
star
85

infra

nix-community infrastructure [maintainer=@Mic92]
Nix
74
star
86

nix-data-science

Standard set of packages and overlays for data-scientists [maintainer=@tbenst]
Nix
72
star
87

zon2nix

Convert the dependencies in `build.zig.zon` to a Nix expression [maintainer=@figsoda]
Zig
68
star
88

hydra-check

check hydra for the build status of a package [maintainer=@makefu,@Artturin]
Python
66
star
89

kde2nix

Provisional, experimental Plasma 6 (and friends) pre-release packaging [maintainer=@K900]
Nix
66
star
90

nixpkgs.lib

nixpkgs lib for cheap instantiation [maintainer=@github-action] (with initial help from @blaggacao)
Nix
66
star
91

ethereum.nix

Nix packages and NixOS modules for the Ethereum ecosystem. [maintainers=@aldoborrero,@brianmcgee,@selfuryon]
Nix
65
star
92

setup.nix

Nixpkgs based build tools for declarative Python packages [maintainer=@datakurre]
Nix
64
star
93

nix-installers

Nix installers for legacy distributions (rpm & deb & pacman) [maintainer=@adisbladis]
Nix
62
star
94

nix-unit

Unit testing for Nix code [maintainer=@adisbladis]
C++
60
star
95

nix4vscode

Rust
53
star
96

redoxpkgs

Cross-compile to Redox using Nix [maintainer=@aaronjanse]
Nix
52
star
97

nix-ts-mode

An Emacs major mode for editing Nix expressions, powered by tree-sitter [maintainer=@remi-gelinas]
Emacs Lisp
50
star
98

patsh

A command-line tool for patching shell scripts inspired by resholve [maintainer=@figsoda]
Rust
48
star
99

mavenix

Deterministic Maven builds using Nix [maintainer=@icetan]
Nix
45
star
100

nixpkgs-pytools

Tools for removing the tedious nature of creating nixpkgs derivations [maintainer=@costrouc]
Python
44
star