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.

Default profile

       The  default  profile  used  by  nix  profile is $HOME/.nix-profile, which, if it does not
       exist, is created as a symlink to /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/default if Nix is invoked
       by the root user, or /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/username otherwise.

       You can specify another profile location using --profile path.

Filesystem layout

       Profiles  are  versioned as follows. When using profile path, path is a symlink to path-N,
       where N is the current version of the profile. In turn, path-N is a symlink to a  path  in
       the Nix store. For example:

       $ ls -l /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/alice/profile*
       lrwxrwxrwx 1 alice users 14 Nov 25 14:35 /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/alice/profile -> profile-7-link
       lrwxrwxrwx 1 alice users 51 Oct 28 16:18 /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/alice/profile-5-link -> /nix/store/q69xad13ghpf7ir87h0b2gd28lafjj1j-profile
       lrwxrwxrwx 1 alice users 51 Oct 29 13:20 /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/alice/profile-6-link -> /nix/store/6bvhpysd7vwz7k3b0pndn7ifi5xr32dg-profile
       lrwxrwxrwx 1 alice users 51 Nov 25 14:35 /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/alice/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 /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/eelco/profile-7-link/
       /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/eelco/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.json
       dr-xr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan  1  1970 share

       /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/eelco/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

       /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/eelco/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

       …

       The file manifest.json records the provenance of the packages that are installed  in  this
       version of the profile. It looks like this:

       {
         "version": 1,
         "elements": [
           {
             "active": true,
             "attrPath": "legacyPackages.x86_64-linux.zoom-us",
             "originalUrl": "flake:nixpkgs",
             "storePaths": [
               "/nix/store/wbhg2ga8f3h87s9h5k0slxk0m81m4cxl-zoom-us-5.3.469451.0927"
             ],
             "uri": "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/13d0c311e3ae923a00f734b43fd1d35b47d8943a"
           },
           …
         ]
       }

       Each  object  in  the  array  elements  denotes an installed package and has the following
       fields:

       • originalUrl: The flake reference (./nix3-flake.md) specified by the user at the time  of
         installation  (e.g.  nixpkgs). This is also the flake reference that will be used by nix
         profile upgrade.

       • uri: The immutable flake reference to which originalUrl resolved.

       • attrPath: The flake output attribute that provided this package. Note that this  is  not
         necessarily  the  attribute that the user specified, but the one resulting from applying
         the default  attribute  paths  and  prefixes;  for  instance,  hello  might  resolve  to
         packages.x86_64-linux.hello and the empty string to packages.x86_64-linux.default.

       • storePath: The paths in the Nix store containing the package.

       • active:  Whether  the  profile contains symlinks to the files of this package. If set to
         false, the package is kept in the Nix store, but  is  not  “visible”  in  the  profile’s
         symlink tree.

                                                                                  nix3-profile(1)