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nix-profiles(5) File Formats Manual nix-profiles(5)
Profiles
A directory that contains links to profiles managed by nix-env
<../../command-ref/nix-env.md> and nix profile <../../command-ref/new-
cli/nix3-profile.md>:
• $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profiles for regular users
• $NIX_STATE_DIR/profiles/per-user/root if the user is root
A profile is a directory of symlinks to files in the Nix store.
Filesystem layout
Profiles are versioned as follows. When using a profile named path,
path is a symlink to path-N-link, where N is the version of the pro-
file. In turn, path-N-link is a symlink to a path in the Nix store.
For example:
$ ls -l ~alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 alice users 14 Nov 25 14:35 /home/alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile -> profile-7-link
lrwxrwxrwx 1 alice users 51 Oct 28 16:18 /home/alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-5-link -> /nix/store/q69xad13ghpf7ir87h0b2gd28lafjj1j-profile
lrwxrwxrwx 1 alice users 51 Oct 29 13:20 /home/alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-6-link -> /nix/store/6bvhpysd7vwz7k3b0pndn7ifi5xr32dg-profile
lrwxrwxrwx 1 alice users 51 Nov 25 14:35 /home/alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/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 ~eelco/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile-7-link/
/home/eelco/.local/state/nix/profiles/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.nix
dr-xr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Jan 1 1970 share
/home/eelco/.local/state/nix/profiles/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
/home/eelco/.local/state/nix/profiles/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
Each profile version contains a manifest file: - manifest.nix
<../../command-ref/files/manifest.nix.md> used by nix-env <../../com-
mand-ref/nix-env.md>. - manifest.json <../../command-
ref/files/manifest.json.md> used by nix profile <../../command-ref/new-
cli/nix3-profile.md> (experimental).
User profile link
A symbolic link to the user's current profile:
• ~/.nix-profile
• $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profile if use-xdg-base-directories
<../../command-ref/conf-file.md#conf-use-xdg-base-directories> is
set to true.
By default, this symlink points to:
• $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profiles/profile for regular users
• $NIX_STATE_DIR/profiles/per-user/root/profile for root
The PATH environment variable should include /bin subdirectory of the
profile link (e.g. ~/.nix-profile/bin) for the user environment to be
visible to the user. The installer <../../installation/installing-
binary.md> sets this up by default, unless you enable use-xdg-base-di-
rectories <../../command-ref/conf-file.md#conf-use-xdg-base-directo-
ries>.
nix-profiles(5)
Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=nix-profiles&sektion=5&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.0>