NixOS · edolstra · Sep 1, 2018 · Sep 1, 2018 · Aug 31, 2018 · Sep 1, 2018
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ bundle.</para>
   <step><para>Set the environment variable and install Nix</para>
     <screen>
 $ export NIX_SSL_CERT_FILE=/etc/ssl/my-certificate-bundle.crt
-$ curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
+$ sh &lt;(curl https://nixos.org/nix/install)
 </screen></step>
 
   <step><para>In the shell profile and rc files (for example,

@@ -6,13 +6,30 @@
 
 <title>Installing a Binary Distribution</title>
 
-<para>If you are using Linux or macOS, the easiest way to install
-Nix is to run the following command:
+<para>If you are using Linux or macOS, the easiest way to install Nix
+is to run the following command:
 
 <screen>
-$ bash &lt;(curl https://nixos.org/nix/install)
+  $ sh &lt;(curl https://nixos.org/nix/install)
 </screen>
 
+As of Nix 2.1.0, the Nix installer will always default to creating a
+single-user installation, however opting in to the multi-user
+installation is highly recommended.
+</para>
+
+<section xml:id="sect-single-user-installation">
+  <title>Single User Installation</title>
+
+  <para>
+    To explicitly select a single-user installation on your system:
+
+    <screen>
+  sh &lt;(curl https://nixos.org/nix/install) --no-daemon
+</screen>
+  </para>
+
+<para>
 This will perform a single-user installation of Nix, meaning that
 <filename>/nix</filename> is owned by the invoking user.  You should
 run this under your usual user account, <emphasis>not</emphasis> as
@@ -33,58 +50,141 @@ and <filename>.profile</filename> to source
 the <command>NIX_INSTALLER_NO_MODIFY_PROFILE</command> environment
 variable before executing the install script to disable this
 behaviour.
-
 </para>
 
-<!--
-<para>You can also manually download and install a binary package.
-Binary packages of the latest stable release are available for Fedora,
-Debian, Ubuntu, macOS and various other systems from the <link
-xlink:href="http://nixos.org/nix/download.html">Nix homepage</link>.
-You can also get builds of the latest development release from our
-<link
-xlink:href="http://hydra.nixos.org/job/nix/master/release/latest-finished#tabs-constituents">continuous
-build system</link>.</para>
 
-<para>For Fedora, RPM packages are available.  These can be installed
-or upgraded using <command>rpm -U</command>.  For example,
+<para>You can uninstall Nix simply by running:
 
 <screen>
-$ rpm -U nix-1.8-1.i386.rpm</screen>
+$ rm -rf /nix
+</screen>
 
 </para>
-
-<para>For Debian and Ubuntu, you can download a Deb package and
-install it like this:
+</section>
+
+<section xml:id="sect-multi-user-installation">
+  <title>Multi User Installation</title>
+  <para>
+    The multi-user Nix installation creates system users, and a system
+    service for the Nix daemon.
+  </para>
+
+  <itemizedlist>
+    <title>Supported Systems</title>
+
+    <listitem>
+      <para>Linux running systemd, with SELinux disabled</para>
+    </listitem>
+    <listitem><para>macOS</para></listitem>
+  </itemizedlist>
+
+  <para>
+    You can instruct the installer to perform a multi-user
+    installation on your system:
+
+    <screen>
+  sh &lt;(curl https://nixos.org/nix/install) --daemon
+</screen>
+  </para>
+
+  <para>
+    The multi-user installation of Nix will create build users between
+    the user IDs 30001 and 30032, and a group with the group ID 30000.
+
+    You should run this under your usual user account,
+    <emphasis>not</emphasis> as root. The script will invoke
+    <command>sudo</command> as needed.
+  </para>
+
+  <note><para>
+    If you need Nix to use a different group ID or user ID set, you
+    will have to download the tarball manually and <link
+    linkend="sect-nix-install-binary-tarball">edit the install
+    script</link>.
+  </para></note>
+
+  <para>
+    The installer will modify <filename>/etc/bashrc</filename>, and
+    <filename>/etc/zshrc</filename> if they exist. The installer will
+    first back up these files with a
+    <literal>.backup-before-nix</literal> extension. The installer
+    will also create <filename>/etc/profile.d/nix.sh</filename>.
+  </para>
+
+  <para>You can uninstall Nix with the following commands:
 
 <screen>
-$ dpkg -i nix_1.8-1_amd64.deb</screen>
+sudo rm -rf /etc/profile/nix.sh /etc/nix /nix ~root/.nix-profile ~root/.nix-defexpr ~root/.nix-channels ~/.nix-profile ~/.nix-defexpr ~/.nix-channels
+
+# If you are on Linux with systemd, you will need to run:
+sudo systemctl stop nix-daemon.socket
+sudo systemctl stop nix-daemon.service
+sudo systemctl disable nix-daemon.socket
+sudo systemctl disable nix-daemon.service
+sudo systemctl daemon-reload
+
+# If you are on macOS, you will need to run:
+sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.nixos.nix-daemon.plist
+sudo rm /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.nixos.nix-daemon.plist
+</screen>
 
-</para>
--->
+    There may also be references to Nix in
+    <filename>/etc/profile</filename>,
+    <filename>/etc/bashrc</filename>, and
+    <filename>/etc/zshrc</filename> which you may remove.
+  </para>
 
-<para>You can also download a binary tarball that contains Nix and all
-its dependencies.  (This is what the install script at
-<uri>https://nixos.org/nix/install</uri> does automatically.)  You
-should unpack it somewhere (e.g. in <filename>/tmp</filename>), and
-then run the script named <command>install</command> inside the binary
-tarball:
+</section>
 
-<screen>
-alice$ cd /tmp
-alice$ tar xfj nix-1.8-x86_64-darwin.tar.bz2
-alice$ cd nix-1.8-x86_64-darwin
-alice$ ./install
-</screen>
+<section xml:id="sect-nix-install-pinned-version-url">
+  <title>Installing a pinned Nix version from a URL</title>
 
-</para>
+  <para>
+    NixOS.org hosts version-specific installation URLs for all Nix
+    versions since 1.11.16, at
+    <literal>https://nixos.org/releases/nix/nix-VERSION/install</literal>.
+  </para>
 
-<para>You can uninstall Nix simply by running:
+  <para>
+    These install scripts can be used the same as the main
+  NixOS.org installation script:
 
-<screen>
-$ rm -rf /nix
+  <screen>
+  sh &lt;(curl https://nixos.org/nix/install)
 </screen>
+  </para>
 
-</para>
+  <para>
+    In the same directory of the install script are sha256 sums, and
+    gpg signature files.
+  </para>
+</section>
+
+<section xml:id="sect-nix-install-binary-tarball">
+  <title>Installing from a binary tarball</title>
 
+  <para>
+    You can also download a binary tarball that contains Nix and all
+    its dependencies.  (This is what the install script at
+    <uri>https://nixos.org/nix/install</uri> does automatically.)  You
+    should unpack it somewhere (e.g. in <filename>/tmp</filename>),
+    and then run the script named <command>install</command> inside
+    the binary tarball:
+
+
+<screen>
+alice$ cd /tmp
+alice$ tar xfj nix-1.8-x86_64-darwin.tar.bz2
+alice$ cd nix-1.8-x86_64-darwin
+alice$ ./install
+</screen>
+  </para>
+
+  <para>
+    If you need to edit the multi-user installation script to use
+    different group ID or a different user ID range, modify the
+    variables set in the file named
+    <filename>install-multi-user</filename>.
+  </para>
+</section>
 </chapter>
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
 
 <itemizedlist>
 
-  <listitem><para>Linux (i686, x86_64).</para></listitem>
+  <listitem><para>Linux (i686, x86_64, aarch64).</para></listitem>
 
   <listitem><para>macOS (x86_64).</para></listitem>
 

@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+<chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
+      xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
+      xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
+      version="5.0"
+      xml:id="ch-upgrading-nix">
+
+  <title>Upgrading Nix</title>
+
+  <para>
+    Multi-user Nix users on macOS can upgrade Nix by running
+    <command>sudo -i sh -c 'nix-channel --update &amp;&amp; nix-env
+    -iA nixpkgs.nix'; sudo launchctl stop org.nixos.nix-daemon; sudo
+    launchctl start org.nixos.nix-daemon</command>.
+  </para>
+
+  <para>
+    Single-user installations of Nix should run <command>nix-channel
+    --update; nix-env -iA nixpkgs.nix</command>.
+  </para>
+
+</chapter>
@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@
 
   <xi:include href="introduction/introduction.xml" />
   <xi:include href="installation/installation.xml" />
+  <xi:include href="installation/upgrading.xml" />
   <xi:include href="packages/package-management.xml" />
   <xi:include href="expressions/writing-nix-expressions.xml" />
   <xi:include href="advanced-topics/advanced-topics.xml" />

@@ -49,6 +49,29 @@ new features:</para>
     <varname>nix-support/propagated-user-env-packages</varname>.</para>
   </listitem>
 
+  <listitem>
+    <para>The Nix installer will no longer default to the Multi-User
+    installation for macOS. You can still <link
+    linkend="sect-multi-user-installation">instruct the installer to
+    run in multi-user mode</link>.
+    </para>
+  </listitem>
+
+  <listitem>
+    <para>The Nix installer now supports performing a Multi-User
+    installation for Linux computers which are running systemd. You
+    can <link
+    linkend="sect-multi-user-installation">select a Multi-User installation</link> by passing the
+    <option>--daemon</option> flag to the installer: <command>sh &lt;(curl
+    https://nixos.org/nix/install) --daemon</command>.
+    </para>
+
+    <para>The multi-user installer cannot handle systems with SELinux.
+    If your system has SELinux enabled, you can <link
+    linkend="sect-single-user-installation">force the installer to run
+    in single-user mode</link>.</para>
+  </listitem>
+
 </itemizedlist>
 
 <para>This release has contributions from

@@ -30,15 +30,14 @@ if [ "$(uname -s)" = "Darwin" ]; then
     fi
 fi
 
-# Determine if we should punt to the single-user installer or not
+# Determine if we could use the multi-user installer or not
 if [ "$(uname -s)" = "Darwin" ]; then
-    INSTALL_MODE=daemon
+    echo "Note: a multi-user installation is possible. See https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#sect-multi-user-installation" >&2
 elif [ "$(uname -s)" = "Linux" ] && [ -e /run/systemd/system ]; then
-    INSTALL_MODE=daemon
-else
-    INSTALL_MODE=no-daemon
+    echo "Note: a multi-user installation is possible. See https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#sect-multi-user-installation" >&2
 fi
 
+INSTALL_MODE=no-daemon
 # Trivially handle the --daemon / --no-daemon options
 if [ "x${1:-}" = "x--no-daemon" ]; then
     INSTALL_MODE=no-daemon
@@ -47,14 +46,18 @@ elif [ "x${1:-}" = "x--daemon" ]; then
 elif [ "x${1:-}" != "x" ]; then
     (
         echo "Nix Installer [--daemon|--no-daemon]"
+
+        echo "Choose installation method."
         echo ""
-        echo " --daemon:    Force the installer to use the Daemon"
-        echo "              based installer, even though it may not"
-        echo "              work."
+        echo " --daemon:    Installs and configures a background daemon that manages the store,"
+        echo "              providing multi-user support and better isolation for local builds."
+        echo "              Both for security and reproducibility, this method is recommended if"
+        echo "              supported on your platform."
+        echo "              See https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#sect-multi-user-installation"
         echo ""
-        echo " --no-daemon: Force a no-daemon, single-user"
-        echo "              installation even when the preferred"
-        echo "              method is with the daemon."
+        echo " --no-daemon: Simple, single-user installation that does not require root and is"
+        echo "              trivial to uninstall."
+        echo "              (default)"
         echo ""
     ) >&2
     exit