Name

       nix profile - manage Nix profiles

Synopsis

       nix profile [option…] subcommand

       where subcommand is one of the following:

       • nix  profile  diff-closures  -  show  the  closure  difference between each version of a
         profile
       • nix profile history - show all versions of a profile
       • nix profile install - install a package into a profile
       • nix profile list - list installed packages
       • nix profile remove - remove packages from a profile
       • nix profile rollback - roll back to the previous version or a  specified  version  of  a
         profile
       • nix profile upgrade - upgrade packages using their most recent flake
       • nix profile wipe-history - 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 and nix profile:

       • $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  used  by  nix-env.   -
       manifest.json used by nix profile (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 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
       sets this up by default, unless you enable use-xdg-base-directories.

   Profile compatibility
              Warning

              Once you have used nix profile you can no longer use nix-env without first deleting
              $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profiles/profile

       Once you installed a package with nix profile, you get the following  error  message  when
       using nix-env:

       $ 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:

              Warning

              This  will delete packages that have been installed before, so you may want to back
              up this information before running the command.

        $ rm -rf "${XDG_STATE_HOME-$HOME/.local/state}/nix/profiles/profile"

                                                                                  nix3-profile(1)