nixpkgs/pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/chromium/README.md

Maintainers

• TODO: We need more maintainers:
  • https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/78450
  • If you just want to help out without becoming a maintainer:
    • Look for open Nixpkgs issues or PRs related to Chromium
    • Make your own PRs (but please try to make reviews as easy as possible)
• Primary maintainer (responsible for updating Chromium): @primeos
• Testers (test all stable channel updates)
  • nixos-unstable:
    • x86_64: @danielfullmer
    • aarch64: @thefloweringash
  • Stable channel:
    • x86_64: @Frostman
• Other relevant packages:
  • chromiumBeta and chromiumDev: For testing purposes (not build on Hydra)
  • google-chrome, google-chrome-beta, google-chrome-dev: Updated via Chromium's upstream-info.json
  • ungoogled-chromium: Based on chromium (the expressions are regularly copied over and patched accordingly)

Upstream links

• Source code: https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src
• Bugs: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list
• Release updates: https://chromereleases.googleblog.com/
  • Available as Atom or RSS feed (filter for "Stable Channel Update for Desktop")
  • Channel overview: https://omahaproxy.appspot.com/
  • Release schedule: https://chromiumdash.appspot.com/schedule

Updating Chromium

Simply run ./pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/chromium/update.py to update upstream-info.json. After updates it is important to test at least nixosTests.chromium (or basic manual testing) and google-chrome (which reuses upstream-info.json).

To run all automated NixOS VM tests for Chromium, ungoogled-chromium, and Google Chrome (not recommended, currently 6x tests!):

nix-build nixos/tests/chromium.nix

A single test can be selected, e.g. to test ungoogled-chromium (see channelMap in nixos/tests/chromium.nix for all available options):

nix-build nixos/tests/chromium.nix -A ungoogled

(Note: Testing Google Chrome requires export NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNFREE=1.)

For custom builds it's possible to "override" channelMap.

Backports

All updates are considered security critical and should be ported to the stable channel ASAP. When there is a new stable release the old one should receive security updates for roughly one month. After that it is important to mark Chromium as insecure (see 69e4ae56c4 for an example; it is important that the tested job still succeeds and that all browsers that use upstream-info.json are marked as insecure).

Major version updates

Unfortunately, Chromium regularly breaks on major updates and might need various patches. Either due to issues with the Nix build sandbox (e.g. we cannot fetch dependencies via the network and do not use standard FHS paths) or due to missing upstream fixes that need to be backported.

Good sources for such patches and other hints:

• https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/tree/packages/chromium/trunk
• https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/www-client/chromium
• https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/chromium/tree/master

If the build fails immediately due to unknown compiler flags this usually means that a new major release of LLVM is required.

Beta and Dev channels

Those channels are only used to test and fix builds in advance. They may be broken at times and must not delay stable channel updates.