mirror of
https://github.com/NixOS/nix.git
synced 2024-12-12 08:32:30 +00:00
57 lines
2.2 KiB
XML
57 lines
2.2 KiB
XML
<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="sec-channels">
|
||
|
||
<title>Channels</title>
|
||
|
||
<para>If you want to stay up to date with a set of packages, it’s not
|
||
very convenient to manually download the latest set of Nix expressions
|
||
for those packages, use <command>nix-pull</command> to register
|
||
pre-built binaries (if available), and upgrade using
|
||
<command>nix-env</command>. Fortunately, there’s a better way:
|
||
<emphasis>Nix channels</emphasis>.</para>
|
||
|
||
<para>A Nix channel is just a URL that points to a place that contains
|
||
a set of Nix expressions and a manifest. Using the command <link
|
||
linkend="sec-nix-channel"><command>nix-channel</command></link> you
|
||
can automatically stay up to date with whatever is available at that
|
||
URL.</para>
|
||
|
||
<para>You can “subscribe” to a channel using
|
||
<command>nix-channel --add</command>, e.g.,
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ nix-channel --add http://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-unstable</screen>
|
||
|
||
subscribes you to a channel that always contains that latest version
|
||
of the Nix Packages collection. (Instead of
|
||
<literal>nixpkgs-unstable</literal> you could also subscribe to
|
||
<literal>nixpkgs-stable</literal>, which should have a higher level of
|
||
stability, but right now is just outdated.) Subscribing really just
|
||
means that the URL is added to the file
|
||
<filename>~/.nix-channels</filename>. Right now there is no command
|
||
to “unsubscribe”; you should just edit that file manually
|
||
and delete the offending URL.</para>
|
||
|
||
<para>To obtain the latest Nix expressions available in a channel, do
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ nix-channel --update</screen>
|
||
|
||
This downloads the Nix expressions in every channel (downloaded from
|
||
<literal><replaceable>url</replaceable>/nixexprs.tar.bz2</literal>)
|
||
and registers any available pre-built binaries in every channel
|
||
(by <command>nix-pull</command>ing
|
||
<literal><replaceable>url</replaceable>/MANIFEST</literal>). It also
|
||
makes the union of each channel’s Nix expressions the default for
|
||
<command>nix-env</command> operations. Consequently, you can then say
|
||
|
||
<screen>
|
||
$ nix-env -u '*'</screen>
|
||
|
||
to upgrade all packages in your profile to the latest versions
|
||
available in the subscribed channels.</para>
|
||
|
||
</chapter> |