nix3-profile(1)

Name

nix profile - manage Nix profiles

Synopsis

nix profile [option…] subcommand

where subcommand is one of the following:

•: nix profile diff-closures ⟨./nix3-profile-diff-closures.md⟩ - show the closure difference between each version of a profile

•: nix profile history ⟨./nix3-profile-history.md⟩ - show all versions of a profile

•: nix profile install ⟨./nix3-profile-install.md⟩ - install a package into a profile

•: nix profile list ⟨./nix3-profile-list.md⟩ - list installed packages

•: nix profile remove ⟨./nix3-profile-remove.md⟩ - remove packages from a profile

•: nix profile rollback ⟨./nix3-profile-rollback.md⟩ - roll back to the previous version or a specified version of a profile

•: nix profile upgrade ⟨./nix3-profile-upgrade.md⟩ - upgrade packages using their most recent flake

•: nix profile wipe-history ⟨./nix3-profile-wipe-history.md⟩ - 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 ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/nix-env.md⟩ and nix profile ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/new-cli/nix3-profile.md⟩\c :

•: $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profiles for regular users

•: $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 ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/files/manifest.nix.md⟩ used by nix-env ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/nix-env.md⟩\c . - manifest.json ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/files/manifest.json.md⟩ used by nix profile ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/new-cli/nix3-profile.md⟩ (experimental).

User profile link

A symbolic link to the user’s current profile:

•: ~/.nix-profile

•: $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profile if use-xdg-base-directories ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/conf-file.md#conf-use-xdg-base-directories⟩ is set to true.

By default, this symlink points to:

•: $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profiles/profile for regular users

•: $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 ⟨@docroot@/installation/installing-binary.md⟩ sets this up by default, unless you enable use-xdg-base-directories ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/conf-file.md#conf-use-xdg-base-directories⟩\c .

Profile compatibility

Warning

Once you have used nix profile ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/new-cli/nix3-profile.md⟩ you can no longer use nix-env ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/nix-env.md⟩ without first deleting $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profiles/profile

Once you installed a package with nix profile ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/new-cli/nix3-profile.md⟩\c , you get the following error message when using nix-env ⟨@docroot@/command-ref/nix-env.md⟩\c :

$ nix-env -f '<nixpkgs>' -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: