NIX Package Manager Install on Alpine Linux

System Information

• alpine 3.17.1, 3.18, 3.19 and edge x86-64
• multiple linux kernels worked 6.1.8-lts w/zfs and 6.6.8-lts
• edge, testing apk repos enabled

Preparation

You may need these packages if not already installed: > doas apk add spice-vdagent

apk add sudo 
apk add shadow
apk add bash
apk add curl
apk add xz

> ONELINER “`bash apk add sudo shadow bash curl xz “`

• pkg sudo is needed; aliasing /usr/bin/doas does not work
• pkg shadow provides groupadd and related tools, needed by nix install script
• the install script might not behave with ash so install bash

Perform the sh-bang multi-user installation

sh <(curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install) --daemon
# answer no to more info
# answer yes to sudo
# answer yes to proceed with multi-user installation
# yes to continue
# ... pray ...
# if successfull, acknowledge the reminder

nix rc service script

Alpine does not use systemd. Copy this file to /etc/init.d/nix-daemon and make it executable. I copied this script from the testing package in the alpine package repository.

  #!/sbin/openrc-run
description="Nix multi-user support daemon"

command="/root/.nix-profile/bin/nix-daemon"
command_background="yes"
pidfile="/run/$RC_SVCNAME.pid"

For some reason, the multi-user install does not install the nix-daemon binary in a system directory, instead it gets installed here:

/root/.nix-profile/bin/nix-daemon

I chose to copy this binary to /usr/sbin which seems to work.

Enable and start the service:

# run as root or sudo
chmod a+rx /etc/init.d/nix-daemon
cp /root/.nix-profile/bin/nix-daemon /usr/sbin
rc-update    add nix-daemon
rc-service nix-daemon start

Post install steps

At this point, you should make sure that your userid has been added to the nixbld group. Also we need to open up the permissions on the nix-daemon socket so nixbld group members can communicate with the daemon.

Follow the instructions the script emits - run it as root the first time:

# nix installer should have emitted this text:
#   Alright! We're done!
#   Try it! Open a new terminal, and type:
#   nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m"

The output should look something similar to the following:

• system: `”x86_64-linux”`
• host os: `Linux 6.1.8-0-lts, Alpine Linux, noversion, nobuild`
• multi-user?: `yes`
• sandbox: `yes`
• version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.13.1`
• channels(root): `”nixpkgs”`
• nixpkgs: `/root/.nix-defexpr/channels/nixpkgs`

Now, before we try running nix as non-root user, let’s add ourselves to the nixbld group and reboot. This will ensure our userid is in the nixbld group and that all running shells have picked it up. Rebooting after this will also test that our service starts correctly on a fresh boot.

sudo adduser YOURUSERID nixbld
reboot (or do a safe shutdown however you usually do it)

Non root user testing

Now, let’s try the first steps documentation from https://nixos.org/guides/ad-hoc-developer-environments.html as our default user.

$ hello
The program ‘hello’ is currently not installed.

$ nix-shell -p hello

[nix-shell:~]$ hello
Hello, world!

[nix-shell:~]$ exit
exit

$ hello
The program ‘hello’ is currently not installed.

Now we can try running a real application inside of a nix shell:

proteus:~$ nix-shell -p deno
this path will be fetched (24.28 MiB download, 80.64 MiB unpacked):
  /nix/store/kn6c4dkql7jhh2vzdja78bs3rs59hpb2-deno-1.29.4
copying path '/nix/store/kn6c4dkql7jhh2vzdja78bs3rs59hpb2-deno-1.29.4' from 'https://cache.nixos.org'...

[nix-shell:~]$ deno --version
deno 1.29.4 (release, x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu)
v8 10.9.194.5
typescript 4.9.4

[nix-shell:~]$ exit

the end