nixpkgs/nixos/doc/manual/configuration/adding-custom-packages.xml
Matthew Harm Bekkema a6c7132abc doc: change git:// links to https:// (#44395)
The server is not verified over the git:// transfer protocol. If you
clone a repository over git://, you should check if the latest commit's
hash is correct.

On the other hand, https:// will always verify the server automatically,
using certificate authorities.
2018-08-03 14:01:34 +01:00

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<section 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-custom-packages">
<title>Adding Custom Packages</title>
<para>
Its possible that a package you need is not available in NixOS. In that
case, you can do two things. First, you can clone the Nixpkgs repository, add
the package to your clone, and (optionally) submit a patch or pull request to
have it accepted into the main Nixpkgs repository. This is described in
detail in the <link
xlink:href="http://nixos.org/nixpkgs/manual">Nixpkgs
manual</link>. In short, you clone Nixpkgs:
<screen>
$ git clone https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs
$ cd nixpkgs
</screen>
Then you write and test the package as described in the Nixpkgs manual.
Finally, you add it to <literal>environment.systemPackages</literal>, e.g.
<programlisting>
<xref linkend="opt-environment.systemPackages"/> = [ pkgs.my-package ];
</programlisting>
and you run <command>nixos-rebuild</command>, specifying your own Nixpkgs
tree:
<screen>
# nixos-rebuild switch -I nixpkgs=/path/to/my/nixpkgs</screen>
</para>
<para>
The second possibility is to add the package outside of the Nixpkgs tree. For
instance, here is how you specify a build of the
<link xlink:href="http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/">GNU Hello</link>
package directly in <filename>configuration.nix</filename>:
<programlisting>
<xref linkend="opt-environment.systemPackages"/> =
let
my-hello = with pkgs; stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
name = "hello-2.8";
src = fetchurl {
url = "mirror://gnu/hello/${name}.tar.gz";
sha256 = "0wqd8sjmxfskrflaxywc7gqw7sfawrfvdxd9skxawzfgyy0pzdz6";
};
};
in
[ my-hello ];
</programlisting>
Of course, you can also move the definition of <literal>my-hello</literal>
into a separate Nix expression, e.g.
<programlisting>
<xref linkend="opt-environment.systemPackages"/> = [ (import ./my-hello.nix) ];
</programlisting>
where <filename>my-hello.nix</filename> contains:
<programlisting>
with import &lt;nixpkgs> {}; # bring all of Nixpkgs into scope
stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
name = "hello-2.8";
src = fetchurl {
url = "mirror://gnu/hello/${name}.tar.gz";
sha256 = "0wqd8sjmxfskrflaxywc7gqw7sfawrfvdxd9skxawzfgyy0pzdz6";
};
}
</programlisting>
This allows testing the package easily:
<screen>
$ nix-build my-hello.nix
$ ./result/bin/hello
Hello, world!
</screen>
</para>
</section>