Name

       nix profile - manage Nix profiles

Synopsis

       nix profile [option…] subcommand

       where subcommand is one of the following:

       •  nix profile diff-closures - show the closure difference between each version of a profile
       •  nix profile history - show all versions of a profile
       •  nix profile install - install a package into a profile
       •  nix profile list - list installed packages
       •  nix profile remove - remove packages from a profile
       •  nix profile rollback - roll back to the previous version or a specified version of a profile
       •  nix profile upgrade - upgrade packages using their most recent flake
       •  nix profile wipe-history - delete non-current versions of a profile

Description

       nix  profile allows you to create and manage Nix profiles. A Nix profile is a set of packages that can be
       installed and upgraded independently from each other. Nix profiles are versioned,  allowing  them  to  be
       rolled back easily.

Files

   Profiles
       A directory that contains links to profiles managed by nix-env and nix profile:

       •  $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 profile.  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 used by nix-env.  - manifest.json  used  by
       nix profile (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 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 sets this up by  default,
       unless you enable use-xdg-base-directories.

   Profile compatibility
              Warning

              Once   you  have  used  nix  profile  you  can  no  longer  use  nix-env  without  first  deleting
              $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profiles/profile

       Once you installed a package with nix profile, you get the following error message when using nix-env:

       $ nix-env -f '<nixpkgs>' -iA 'hello'
       error: nix-env
       profile '/home/alice/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile' is incompatible with 'nix-env'; please use 'nix profile' instead

       To migrate back to nix-env you can delete your current profile:

              Warning

              This will delete packages that have been installed before,  so  you  may  want  to  back  up  this
              information before running the command.

        $ rm -rf "${XDG_STATE_HOME-$HOME/.local/state}/nix/profiles/profile"

                                                                                                 nix3-profile(1)