Bad darwin reinstallation experience #2410

infinisil · 2018-09-09T01:59:21Z

Having a mac I thought of using it to fix some darwin failures, so I went to install Nix. Turns out that I had an older version of Nix installed already, but this should work just fine, optimally. Here I describe all the problems that I happen to encounter.

I go to https://nixos.org/nix/ and copy the command to install Nix curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
Paste it into my terminal and run it (some line breaks inserted for readability):

$ curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  2472  100  2472    0     0  11644      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 11660
downloading Nix 2.1.1 binary tarball for x86_64-darwin from 'https://nixos.org/releases/nix/nix-2.1.1/nix-2.1.1-x86_64-darwin.tar.bz2' to '/var/folders/pv/g5wjzg293v50gg59wmjz0fdw0000gn/T/nix-binary-tarball-unpack.XXXXXXXXXX.014RNLvf'...
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100 28.8M  100 28.8M    0     0  1644k      0  0:00:17  0:00:17 --:--:-- 1553k
Note: a multi-user installation is possible. See https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#sect-multi-user-installation
performing a single-user installation of Nix...
/var/folders/pv/g5wjzg293v50gg59wmjz0fdw0000gn/T/nix-binary-tarball-unpack.XXXXXXXXXX.014RNLvf/unpack/nix-2.1.1-x86_64-darwin/install:
directory /nix exists, but is not writable by you.
This could indicate that another user has already performed a single-user installation of Nix on this system.
If you wish to enable multi-user support see http://nixos.org/nix/manual/#ssec-multi-user.
If you wish to continue with a single-user install for infinisil please run 'chown -R infinisil /nix' as root.

Being interested in a multi-user installation, I go to https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#ssec-multi-user, hoping I could easily have it be properly installed with a flag. That page however says something about having to run some script to add build users, and to run nix-daemon in my system start scripts, which I have no idea how to do (okay I have a tiny idea, but this launchctl stuff is so annoying to do). So I give up on that idea, I just want a quick installation.
So I'll run the recommended command, changing /nix's owner and try to run the installer again

$ sudo chown -R infinisil /nix
$ curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh

  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  2472  100  2472    0     0   9688      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  9694
downloading Nix 2.1.1 binary tarball for x86_64-darwin from 'https://nixos.org/releases/nix/nix-2.1.1/nix-2.1.1-x86_64-darwin.tar.bz2' to '/var/folders/pv/g5wjzg293v50gg59wmjz0fdw0000gn/T/nix-binary-tarball-unpack.XXXXXXXXXX.OYxnlHUy'...
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100 28.8M  100 28.8M    0     0  1532k      0  0:00:19  0:00:19 --:--:-- 1658k
Note: a multi-user installation is possible. See https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#sect-multi-user-installation
performing a single-user installation of Nix...
copying Nix to /nix/store...................................
initialising Nix database...
warning: unknown setting 'signed-binary-caches'
warning: unknown setting 'signed-binary-caches'
error: you don't have sufficient rights to use this command
/var/folders/pv/g5wjzg293v50gg59wmjz0fdw0000gn/T/nix-binary-tarball-unpack.XXXXXXXXXX.OYxnlHUy/unpack/nix-2.1.1-x86_64-darwin/install:
unable to register valid paths

Huh, 2 times the same warning and an error. Because I happen to know that Nix has its settings in /etc/nix/nix.conf, I know that deleting this file would probably get me a new one with the "correct" settings. However, it's only a warning, so I'll carry on with the only reasonably response to the error, running with sudo:

$ curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sudo sh
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  2472  100  2472    0     0  10103      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 10089
downloading Nix 2.1.1 binary tarball for x86_64-darwin from 'https://nixos.org/releases/nix/nix-2.1.1/nix-2.1.1-x86_64-darwin.tar.bz2' to '/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/T/nix-binary-tarball-unpack.XXXXXXXXXX.uGYUTfeP'...
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100 28.8M  100 28.8M    0     0  1633k      0  0:00:18  0:00:18 --:--:-- 1567k
Note: a multi-user installation is possible. See https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#sect-multi-user-installation
warning: installing Nix as root is not supported by this script!
performing a single-user installation of Nix...
copying Nix to /nix/store...................................
initialising Nix database...
warning: unknown setting 'signed-binary-caches'
warning: unknown setting 'signed-binary-caches'
Nix: WARNING: bad ownership on /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root, should be 0
Nix: WARNING: bad ownership on /nix/var/nix/gcroots/per-user/root, should be 0
warning: unknown setting 'signed-binary-caches'
installing 'nix-2.1.1'
building '/nix/store/wq1a2gs9vzscmivi7p00gncy127qy4fh-user-environment.drv'...
created 104 symlinks in user environment
warning: unknown setting 'signed-binary-caches'
installing 'nss-cacert-3.38'
building '/nix/store/mk13yxiwf5p0c1sp02bm21p60pjxpv7s-user-environment.drv'...
created 105 symlinks in user environment
warning: unknown setting 'signed-binary-caches'
warning: unknown setting 'signed-binary-caches'
unpacking channels...
created 2 symlinks in user environment

Installation finished!  To ensure that the necessary environment
variables are set, please add the line

  . /Users/infinisil/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/nix.sh

to your shell profile (e.g. ~/.profile).

Huh, a bold message that root isn't supported, but it's only a warning? Followed by another 2 same warnings of the previous kind, followed by another 2 new warnings I have no idea about, followed by a third time the same warning, followed by the same warning another couple times. But the installation did finish! I am surprised. I do what the script recommends and source the command to get Nix available in my current terminal, I'll then try to build something

$ . /Users/infinisil/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/nix.sh
$ nix-build '<nixpkgs>' -A hello
warning: unknown setting 'signed-binary-caches'
these paths will be fetched (3.70 MiB download, 23.85 MiB unpacked):
  /nix/store/1j81scbyzgxsv7dnq6naxvi4lb5q8ln9-ICU-osx-10.10.5
  /nix/store/2cf0hbdgyixp2jl3k6l5mdg15pvkn8ah-CF-osx-10.10.5
  /nix/store/7zcsy4dhx1zcibmqjjnghcmd296bp4ii-Libsystem-osx-10.11.6
  /nix/store/h1zb1padqbbb7jicsvkmrym3r6snphxg-hello-2.10
  /nix/store/jd065p28z3ar0q6nljz479f9mm35v5qn-libc++abi-5.0.2
  /nix/store/qjmqrzk8nhn5maa093fhl3finczz72lw-libc++-5.0.2
fetching path ‘/nix/store/7zcsy4dhx1zcibmqjjnghcmd296bp4ii-Libsystem-osx-10.11.6’...

*** Downloading ‘https://cache.nixos.org/nar/1lvkhijk1h38n9xzdbqq7c5r9d76cyaags981hj28c5ks8fgzfnh.nar.xz’ (signed by ‘cache.nixos.org-1’) to ‘/nix/store/7zcsy4dhx1zcibmqjjnghcmd296bp4ii-Libsystem-osx-10.11.6’...
  % Total    % Received % Xfer
d  Average S
peed
   Time    Time     Time  Cu
rrent

      Dl
oad  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0
     0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --
:--:--     0
 61  922k   61  569k    0     0   876k      0  0:00:0
1 --:--:--  0:00:01  878k
100  922k  100  922k    0
 0  1053k      0 --:--:-- --
:--:-- --:--:-- 1055k

fetching path ‘/nix/store/jd065p28z3ar0q6nljz479f9mm35v5qn-libc++abi-5.0.2’...

*** Downloading ‘https://cache.nixos.org/nar/0a89kwmlj1x194a8fiwc84rfdr7c2f2fqvqfzphpi40923qk4izb.nar.xz’ (signed by ‘cache.nixos.org-1’) to ‘/nix/store/jd065p28z3ar0q6nljz479f9mm35v5qn-libc++abi-5.0.2’...
  % Total    % Receive
d % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current



 Dload  Upload   Total   Spe
nt    Left  Speed
  0     0    0
   0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-
- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
100  100k  100  100k
 0     0   224k      0 -
-
:--:--
--:--:-- --:--:--  225k

fetching path ‘/nix/store/qjmqrzk8nhn5maa093fhl3finczz72lw-libc++-5.0.2’...

*** Downloading ‘https://cache.nixos.org/nar/16dpvnn8cwwyzny4hm6f03j961g3dcj75014pwqajy0cdpkvzim3.nar.xz’ (signed by ‘cache.nixos.org-1’) to ‘/nix/store/qjmqrzk8nhn5maa093fhl3finczz72lw-libc++-5.0.2’...
  % Total    % Receiv
ed % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current


                Dload  Upload
 Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  0     0
 0     0    0     0      0
      0 --:--:-- --:--:--
--:--:--     0
100  666k  100  666k    0     0   958k      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  961k

fetching path ‘/nix/store/1j81scbyzgxsv7dnq6naxvi4lb5q8ln9-ICU-osx-10.10.5’...

*** Downloading ‘https://cache.nixos.org/nar/0j8hfirw6phpikpl37vnp1gflvifg4vvi1x0ypzfq2zn38b8hf0v.nar.xz’ (signed by ‘cache.nixos.org-1’) to ‘/nix/store/1j81scbyzgxsv7dnq6naxvi4lb5q8ln9-ICU-osx-10.10.5’...
  % Total    % Received
% Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time
Time
  Curren
t


            Dload  Up
load   Total   Spent
 Left  Speed
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0
     0 --:--
:-- --:-
-:-- --:--:--     0
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:
--:--
--:
--:-- --:--
:--     0
100 1520k  100 1520k    0     0  1471k      0  0:00:01  0:00:01 --:--:-- 1474k

fetching path ‘/nix/store/2cf0hbdgyixp2jl3k6l5mdg15pvkn8ah-CF-osx-10.10.5’...

*** Downloading ‘https://cache.nixos.org/nar/0n59ld5clza0x7sr43d60hpj1pfkri2clac262aj5igdbbqjywsn.nar.xz’ (signed by ‘cache.nixos.org-1’) to ‘/nix/store/2cf0hbdgyixp2jl3k6l5mdg15pvkn8ah-CF-osx-10.10.5’...
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Spe
ed   T
ime    Time
   Time  Current
     Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  S
peed
  0     0
 0     0
    0     0      0      0
--:--:-
- --:--:
-- --:--:
--     0
100  554k  100  554k
 0     0  1
090k      0 --:--:
-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 1096k

fetching path ‘/nix/store/h1zb1padqbbb7jicsvkmrym3r6snphxg-hello-2.10’...

*** Downloading ‘https://cache.nixos.org/nar/1102rw9b9rf8qv1h3g9cwph4z06ixs7dh65ialhbggb0bya2vq9b.nar.xz’ (signed by ‘cache.nixos.org-1’) to ‘/nix/store/h1zb1padqbbb7jicsvkmrym3r6snphxg-hello-2.10’...
  % Total    % Received %
 Xfer
d
Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current

         Dload  Upload   Total
   Spent    Left  Speed
  0     0    0     0    0
 0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
  0     0    0     0
 0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-
-     0
100 23392  100 23392    0     0  28506      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 28561

/nix/store/h1zb1padqbbb7jicsvkmrym3r6snphxg-hello-2.10

So it really did work. I happen to know that such garbled output comes from a mismatched nix-daemon running. I check whether I have a daemon running

$ pgrep nix-daemon
82
$ ps -p82
  PID TTY           TIME CMD
   82 ??         0:00.03 /nix/store/z21lvakv1l7lhasmv5fvaz8mlzxia8k9-nix-1.11.13/bin/nix-daemon

So indeed, I seem to be running a 1.11.13 nix-daemon, didn't even notice. I don't feel like fixing this now.
8. Wanting to fix this annoying warning: unknown setting 'signed-binary-caches' warning, I remove Nix' config file and install again to get a "fresh" one

$ sudo rm /etc/nix/nix.conf
$ curl https://nixos.org/nix/install | sudo sh
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  2472  100  2472    0     0   8401      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  8379
downloading Nix 2.1.1 binary tarball for x86_64-darwin from 'https://nixos.org/releases/nix/nix-2.1.1/nix-2.1.1-x86_64-darwin.tar.bz2' to '/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/T/nix-binary-tarball-unpack.XXXXXXXXXX.v3xkln1d'...
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100 28.8M  100 28.8M    0     0  1315k      0  0:00:22  0:00:22 --:--:-- 1302k
Note: a multi-user installation is possible. See https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#sect-multi-user-installation
warning: installing Nix as root is not supported by this script!
performing a single-user installation of Nix...
copying Nix to /nix/store...................................
initialising Nix database...
Nix: WARNING: bad ownership on /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root, should be 0
Nix: WARNING: bad ownership on /nix/var/nix/gcroots/per-user/root, should be 0
replacing old 'nix-2.1.1'
installing 'nix-2.1.1'
building '/nix/store/2rm765zycqsjr4w5264rzci9fbfjk6hd-user-environment.drv'...
created 105 symlinks in user environment
unpacking channels...

Installation finished!  To ensure that the necessary environment
variables are set, either log in again, or type

  . /Users/infinisil/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/nix.sh

in your shell.

Only three different warnings this time, yay

Note that in this process I downloaded Nix a total of 4 times.

There are so many things to improve here.

Ping @grahamc @LnL7

Relevant for NixOS/nixpkgs#46401

The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered:

LnL7 · 2018-09-11T18:58:45Z

Firstly upgrade instructions are available here https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#ch-upgrading-nix.

That's definitively possible, https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#sect-multi-user-installation includes instructions for multi-user, maybe we should link to that instead?
A root single-user install isn't supported, but that doesn't mean it's not possible to get that working with some extra steps. I've used this before on systems where a daemon install isn't officially supported. The fact that you're not seeing more problems is because of the previous install.
That also explains the issues seen in 4.

ariutta · 2018-09-14T23:36:57Z

To get rid of warning: unknown setting 'signed-binary-caches', I replaced signed-binary-caches = * with require-sigs = true in /etc/nix/nix.conf.

Related IRC logs.

ariutta · 2018-09-17T19:26:34Z

Should the upgrade change files like /etc/nix/nix.conf? If it doesn't change files, it could at least suggest changes.

ento · 2018-10-10T20:48:25Z

error: you don't have sufficient rights to use this command
/var/folders/pv/g5wjzg293v50gg59wmjz0fdw0000gn/T/nix-binary-tarball-unpack.XXXXXXXXXX.OYxnlHUy/unpack/nix-2.1.1-x86_64-darwin/install:
unable to register valid paths

I encountered the same error while trying to install nix in single-user mode on top of an existing multi-user installation. ls -l /nix showed that the owner of /nix/store had reverted to root. Doing unset NIX_REMOTE before running the install script fixed it.

The nix-daemon plist file was still there so I followed the multi-user uninstallation instructions about the nix-daemon.plist.

Edit: also removed these lines from /etc/bashrc

# Nix
if [ -e '/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/etc/profile.d/nix-daemon.sh' ]; then
  . '/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/etc/profile.d/nix-daemon.sh'
fi
# End Nix

steve-chavez · 2019-01-12T01:48:14Z

Using NixOS 17.09. To get rid of warning: unknown setting 'signed-binary-caches', I added the following to my /etc/configuration.nix:

nix.package = pkgs.nixStable2;

After a nixos-rebuild switch the /etc/nix/nix.conf got rewritten to not include signed-binary-caches = * and includes require-sigs = true instead.

stale · 2021-02-16T00:49:10Z

I marked this as stale due to inactivity. → More info

stale · 2022-04-29T19:09:37Z

I closed this issue due to inactivity. → More info

ariutta mentioned this issue Sep 17, 2018

Upgrading docs: easier to copy + link to issue #2429

Closed

ghost mentioned this issue Aug 9, 2019

Installing doesnt work under fish shell #1512

Closed

domenkozar added the macos Nix on macOS, aka OS X, aka darwin label Apr 30, 2020

stale bot added the stale label Feb 16, 2021

stale bot closed this as completed Apr 29, 2022

thufschmitt reopened this Feb 24, 2023

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Bad darwin reinstallation experience #2410

Bad darwin reinstallation experience #2410

infinisil commented Sep 9, 2018 •

edited

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LnL7 commented Sep 11, 2018

ariutta commented Sep 14, 2018

ariutta commented Sep 17, 2018

ento commented Oct 10, 2018 •

edited

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steve-chavez commented Jan 12, 2019

stale bot commented Feb 16, 2021

stale bot commented Apr 29, 2022

Bad darwin reinstallation experience #2410

Bad darwin reinstallation experience #2410

Comments

infinisil commented Sep 9, 2018 • edited Loading

LnL7 commented Sep 11, 2018

ariutta commented Sep 14, 2018

ariutta commented Sep 17, 2018

ento commented Oct 10, 2018 • edited Loading

steve-chavez commented Jan 12, 2019

stale bot commented Feb 16, 2021

stale bot commented Apr 29, 2022

infinisil commented Sep 9, 2018 •

edited

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ento commented Oct 10, 2018 •

edited

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