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https://github.com/matthewbauer/nix-bundle

Bundle Nix derivations to run anywhere!
https://github.com/matthewbauer/nix-bundle

nix

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Bundle Nix derivations to run anywhere!

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# nix-bundle



nix-bundle is a way to package Nix attributes into single-file executables.



## Benefits



* Single-file output

* Can be run by non-root users

* No runtime

* Distro agnostic

* No installation



## Getting started



Make sure you have installed Nix already. See http://nixos.org/nix/ for more details.



Once you have a working Nix install, you can run:



```sh

$ ./nix-bundle.sh hello /bin/hello

```



```hello``` indicates the Nix derivation from NixPkgs that you want to use, while ```/bin/hello``` indicates the path of the executable relative to ```hello``` that you want to run. This will create the file "hello". Running it:



```sh

$ ./hello

Hello, world!

```



This is a standalone file that is completely portable! As long as you are running the same architecture Linux kernel and have a shell interpreter available it will run.



Some others to try:



```sh

./nix-bundle.sh nano /bin/nano

```



```sh

./nix-bundle.sh emacs /bin/emacs

```



Or if you want to try graphical applications:



```sh

# Simple X game. Very few dependencies. Quick to build and load. ~13MB

./nix-bundle.sh xskat /bin/xskat

```



```sh

./nix-bundle.sh firefox /bin/firefox

```



```sh

# SDL-based game. ~228MB

./nix-bundle.sh ivan /bin/ivan

```



## Self-bundling (meta)



Starting with v0.1.3, you can bundle nix-bundle! To do this, just use nix-bundle normally:



```sh

NIX_PATH="nixpkgs=https://github.com/matthewbauer/nixpkgs/archive/nix-bundle.tar.gz" ./nix-bundle.sh nix-bundle /bin/nix-bundle

```



## [Experimental] Create AppImage executables from Nix expressions



"nix-bundle.sh" tends to create fairly large outputs. This is largely because nix-bundle.sh "extracts" its payload up front. AppImage uses a different method where extraction only takes place when the file is accessed (through FUSE and SquashFS). You can now create a compliant "AppImage" using the "nix2appimage.sh" script:



```sh

./nix2appimage.sh emacs

```



This will create a file at Emacs-x86_64.AppImage which you can execute.



Notice that there is only one argument for nix2appimage.sh. This is because the target executable will be detected from the .desktop file in ```/share/applications/*.desktop```. As a side-effect, AppImage requires your package to have a .desktop file, so packages like "hello", "coreutils", etc. will not work.



Some other examples to try:



```sh

./nix2appimage.sh firefox

```



```sh

./nix2appimage.sh vlc

```



```sh

./nix2appimage.sh 0ad

```



```sh

./nix2appimage.sh wireshark-gtk

```



These may take a while because of the large closure size.



Note that these do not currently work out of the box with NixOS. Other Linux distros should work.



## Comparison with AppImage, FlatPak, Snappy



| Name       | Distro-agnostic | Runtime required | Root required | Storage |

| ---------- | --------------- | ---------------- | ------------- | ------- |

| nix-bundle | yes | no  | no  | Arx tarball                    | 

| AppImage   | yes | no  | no  | Squashfs w/ lzma compression   |

| FlatPak    | yes | yes | no  | ?                              |

| Snappy     | yes | yes | no  | squashFS                       |



## How it works



Nix-bundle glues together four different projects to work correctly:



* [Arx](https://github.com/solidsnack/arx) - an archive execution tool

* Creates single-file archive executable that can unpack themselves and then run some command. nix-bundle calls nix-user-chroot to bootstrap the Nix environment. It outputs a "./nix" folder.

* [nix-user-chroot](https://github.com/lethalman/nix-user-chroot) - a small bootstrap that uses Linux namespaces to call chroot

  * This will create sub namespace and bind mount the "./nix" to "/nix" so that the Nix references function properly.

* [Nix](https://nixos.org/nix/) - a functional package manager

  * Used to build runtime closures that are self-contained.

* [nixpkgs](https://nixos.org/nixpkgs/)

  * Provides lots of different packages to choose from.



## Drawbacks



Nix-bundle has some drawbacks that need to be worked on:



* Slow startup

* Large files (Firefox 150MB)

* Only compatible Linux

* Outputs built on x86-64 will not run on i386

* Requires Linux kernel with CAP_SYS_USER_NS on and permissions setup correctly